I’ve followed the Consumer Electronics Show for years. Like many people in tech, I tune in each January to understand where the industry thinks it’s heading. Not just the flashy launches, but the underlying direction of travel.

Over that same decade, something else has been changing for me personally. I’ve been losing my sight. And as that has happened, I’ve started noticing a different kind of signal at events like CES.

I’m no longer just listening for speed, power and performance. I’m listening for accessibility.

The Innovation I Now Notice First

Ten years ago, accessibility features were often hidden away. If they existed at all, they were buried in advanced settings menus and poorly documented. You had to know they were there.

Now, more mainstream products are launching with built-in screen readers, voice control, live captions and adaptable interfaces as standard. These aren’t specialist add-ons. They’re part of the core experience.

That shift isn’t accidental. It reflects a broader market realisation that inclusive design produces better products.

Accessibility Has Moved Into the Main Conversation

Accessibility used to sit on the edge of major tech events. Important work, but largely specialist and peripheral.

This year, CES increased its focus again and created a dedicated Accessibility stage. That’s not a token gesture. When something earns a stage at a global technology event, it has become commercially relevant.

When founders, engineers and investors are sitting in those sessions, accessibility stops being a compliance topic and starts becoming a product conversation. It reframes the narrative from obligation to opportunity.

I’ve Seen What Happens When It’s an Afterthought

I’ve tested products that were clearly designed with accessibility in mind from day one. The experience feels cohesive. Considered. Engineered properly.

I’ve also used products where accessibility felt like it was added just before launch. The difference is obvious.

Retrofitting accessibility is expensive. It introduces technical debt, disrupts roadmaps and creates reputational risk. I’ve sat in meetings where accessibility was described as “nice to have,” only to see procurement frameworks later reject products because it wasn’t built in.

That’s the commercial reality.

This Is About Market Advantage

Inclusive design broadens your user base. It reaches disabled customers, ageing populations, enterprise buyers with procurement standards and public sector contracts with legal obligations.

If your product excludes users, your revenue ceiling is lower.

Accessibility is not narrowing your market. It’s expanding it. And companies that understand this are embedding accessibility early, not because they have to, but because it makes commercial sense.

Products that are more flexible, more adaptable and more usable tend to perform better overall. Accessibility is often a marker of engineering maturity.

The Board Level Risk

Here’s where organisations need to be honest with themselves. If accessibility is not discussed at board level, it won’t become strategic.

It will sit in IT, compliance or somewhere undefined. That’s where risk builds quietly.

Regulation is tightening across multiple markets. Procurement requirements are becoming more explicit. Customer expectations are rising. But beyond regulation, there is competitive exposure.

If your competitors build accessibility into their design systems and product strategy while you plan to retrofit later, they gain faster market entry, lower long-term costs and stronger brand trust. You inherit complexity and pressure.

That gap compounds over time.

CES as a Maturity Marker

The Accessibility stage at the Consumer Electronics Show signals that inclusion is moving into the core innovation cycle. Accessibility is being discussed alongside artificial intelligence, smart platforms and next-generation hardware.

That alignment matters.

When accessibility becomes part of the innovation narrative, its absence becomes more visible. And visible absence is not a good look in competitive markets.

A Decade of Perspective

Looking back over the past ten years, the difference is clear to me. When my sight first started changing, I had to actively hunt for accessible functionality. Now, more products ship with accessibility front and centre.

Not perfectly. But intentionally.

That tells me the market has shifted. Inclusive design is increasingly understood as good business, not charity.

The Takeaway

I’ve followed CES for years looking for the next big innovation. This year, what stood out most was accessibility being given a platform and treated as a core topic.

That visibility raises awareness, drives better conversations and educates product teams on the opportunity to build better products for everyone.

The question for leadership teams is straightforward. Is accessibility part of your growth strategy, or is it still something you hope doesn’t become urgent?

The organisations that treat accessibility as competitive infrastructure will lead. The ones that don’t will spend the next decade fixing what they should have built properly in the first place.