Accessible information ‘end to end’: creating content in plain language, including illustrations, at the touch of a button

SUMM AI GmbH and the Hamburg Senate Chancellery want to make information accessible to people who are unable to follow complicated language. Simple language helps them to participate in communication. Easy-to-understand text, however, is only one element of accessible content in plain language. It needs to go hand in hand with clear images. However, the process has not yet been automated. The project team wants to change this by means of AI-assisted copywriting, including images.

Vier Teammitglieder — The team behind the project idea

What makes you a strong team?

We – the Hamburg State Press Office and the tech start-up SUMM AI – have already worked together as a project team in the past, bringing AI-based plain-language texts to hamburg.de. Such a successful collaboration is not a given and, above all, works because everyone involved is pulling in the same direction: we are committed to promoting inclusion and use technological possibilities to make important information accessible to citizens.

Explain your idea in three sentences.

Accessible content in plain language includes not only copy, but also a clear image per section of the text, which further enhances comprehensibility. Until now, the images have been drawn by hand and selected on the basis of the content, or new ones commissioned. We want to automate this with AI, both by automatically suggesting existing images and generating them for new topics using AI. This enables accessible content to be automated ‘end to end’ in plain language!

What makes your idea special?

Not much has happened at the intersection of cutting-edge technology and inclusion, and we want to change that! Although there are legal requirements for accessibility and plain language, particularly in the public sector, they have hardly been implemented in many places. The reason: creating the content manually was extremely time-consuming. With AI-based automation, we can make a real difference – not only in terms of efficiency, but also with a major social impact!

What’s next?

We are in the starting blocks and are currently planning the first joint workshop to understand exactly what the new solution needs to look like so that it can be used meaningfully by the staff of the Hamburg Senate Chancellery. We then want to continue iteratively so that we can build an initial prototype as soon as possible that demonstrates the potential of AI in the context of illustrating texts in plain language! The most important thing is detailed feedback from future users.

Contact

Contact person: Flora Geske
E-mail: flora[at]summ-ai.com