Finding the Missing Link: Q1 2026 Corporate Roundtable Recap

During our inaugural 2axend quarterly Corporate Roundtable on March 18, we brought together a cross-industry group of leaders—from global enterprise technology, pharmaceutical, nonprofit, and language services organizations—to answer a critical question: Why does accessibility continue to stall inside organizations that genuinely want to improve?

The answer wasn’t a lack of intent. It was a lack of ownership across the board.

The Awareness Gap Isn’t Where You Think It Is

Most organizations believe the barrier to inclusion sits at the manager level—due to a lack of training or inconsistent execution. However, this discussion revealed a deeper, more systemic truth: accessibility efforts plateau when they are not clearly owned at the executive level.

While grassroots, bottom-up advocacy from employee-led resource groups (ERGs, BRGs, etc.) and accessibility champions are vital catalysts for change, these efforts struggle to scale beyond isolated wins without top-down reinforcement.

This aligns with global workplace benchmarks: sustainable inclusion requires visible executive sponsorship and integration into core business strategy—not special volunteer projects that lack true long-term accountability and visibility.

Accessibility cannot live in HR alone or sit quietly under compliance; it must be operationalized as a business priority.

From Awareness to Representation

Awareness is often where organizations stop, but representation is where transformation begins.

Roundtable participants emphasized that while their organizations have made progress in “raising awareness,” far fewer have Deaf and hard of hearing representation in decision-making roles.

Without representation, accessibility strategies are built on assumptions rather than lived experience. The result? Solutions that look good on paper but fail in practice.

It’s time for the conversation to shift from “How do we support?” to “Who is leading?”

When Deaf and hard of hearing professionals are at the table as decision-makers, the strategy changes entirely.

AI: A Risk… or a Reset Opportunity

Another major theme of the conversation centered on the rapid adoption of AI.

There was a shared recognition: AI will either accelerate inequity—or help correct it.

Most AI systems today are being trained on datasets reflecting societal biases, including assumptions around communication norms and “default” user behavior.

Without intentional intervention, we risk scaling those biases at unprecedented speed.

However, there is also a window of opportunity where organizations can build accessibility in from the start, rather than retrofitting it later. This includes:

Embedding bias checks into AI development workflows
Prioritizing multimodal communication (visual, signed, captioned)
Designing tools that reflect real-world diversity in how people access information

In many ways, AI represents a forcing function for what I have previously described as The Great Correction.

The Great Correction: From Intent to Infrastructure

For years, organizations have operated in a reactive cycle—responding to accommodation requests and managing compliance risk. Yet, everyone in the recent roundtable agreed that this reactive model is no longer sustainable.

The Great Correction is the shift from reactive intent to proactive infrastructure.

Correcting means recognizing that access should not depend on individuals asking for what they need. Instead, systems must be designed so that access is already embedded—consistent, scalable, and invisible in its execution.

This requires a systemic shift, including:

Executive leaders who treat accessibility as a core business metric
Cross-functional alignment that breaks down operational silos
Investment in systems that prioritize connection, not just compliance

Where Do We Go From Here?

Accessibility doesn’t fail because organizations don’t care; it fails because no one owns it at the level required to make it stick.

At 2axend, we provide organizations with the strategic consulting and training services necessary to move beyond theory and connect your organizations with actionable, community-informed strategies that improve the experiences of Deaf and hard of hearing individuals.

Join our next Corporate Roundtable to learn what your peers at leading organizations are doing to bolster equity in practice, contribute to shaping practical real-life solutions that address systemic barriers, and build a network of peers who collectively strive to make access the default from the inside out.

The future of work isn’t about retrofitting access. Let’s collaborate together to build systems where access—and connection—are the default.