Signpost: SA startup gives
AI a human ear

Accessibility is rarely the headline act at technology summits. But at the Amazon Web Services Summit in Johannesburg last week, it was one of the most memorable stories. The cloud infrastructure giant that has helped propel Amazon to multi-trillion-dollar value shared the limelight with a South African startup that showed how AI can be applied in ways that change people’s daily lives.

Phonetik.ai, a venture dedicated to making video and audio content accessible for people with hearing and vision impairments, has built a platform that uses AI to generate subtitles and audio descriptions at speed and scale. It turns what was once a costly, resource-intensive process into a practical solution for brands and media.

“Phonetik.ai was born out of a dual inspiration,” co-founder Francois Schreuder told Gadget. “I was frustrated by the time and resources it took to create hearing-impaired subtitles and audio description tracks. In the age of AI and machine learning, surely there had to be a better way.

“On the other hand, it was an incredible privilege to bridge that gap and provide the missing sense that impaired audiences are often denied. To help people hear with their eyes and see with their ears – and to experience stories as the creator intended – was a deeply motivating vision.”

The Summit audience, used to hearing about data management and infrastructure, encountered a very different kind of message: an approach that fused technology with empathy, highlighting a need overlooked in the rush to digitalise.

 “The response has been overwhelming,” said co-founder Nick Argyros. “Phonetik resonates with people’s innate need for connection, belonging, and inclusion. But it also goes further: by making accessibility assets practical, scalable, and easy to adopt, we’ve balanced feel-good impact with real-world feasibility. That balance has struck a chord with both audiences and brands.”

It also depends heavily on infrastructure.

“By leveraging the scalability and security of the AWS platform, we’re able to deliver accessibility assets at a global level, ensuring widespread adoption by brands and media companies alike,” said Argyros. The reference to scalability and security echoed one of the major themes of the Summit itself, with AWS and other executives highlighting those qualities as the foundation for both resilience and innovation.

Phonetik’s model demonstrates how those qualities translate into impact. Global media already relies on subtitling and transcription, but Schreuder pointed out that the current state of tools falls short.

“Traditional subtitles and transcription simply don’t tell the whole story. Phonetik.ai makes the creation of accessibility assets accessible to brands, ensuring that the 20–30% of people worldwide living with some degree of hearing or vision impairment are not left out, but fully part of the conversation.”

That statistic reframes the issue: it represents more than two billion people. At most technology conferences, numbers tend to describe terabytes or transactions. This one described individuals whose experience of communication and entertainment can be expanded when technology prioritises accessibility.

The argument extends far beyond media. Enterprises and governments alike are shifting to video-first channels, whether through customer engagement or online training. Accessibility is therefore part of how communication works at scale. In that context, Phonetik’s proposition aligns with both social inclusion and business reality.

It also fits with a longer tradition in South African innovation. The country has produced pioneering fintech and early adoption of payment systems that spread globally. Increasingly, its startups focus on inclusion: addressing the needs of communities underserved by mainstream global technology. Phonetik’s model, addressing impairments that affect up to a third of the population, places it within that lineage.

The partnership with AWS makes this positioning possible. A startup with a bold idea gains reach, security and compliance through the platform, while AWS gains a showcase for the versatility of its infrastructure. The combination of local ingenuity and global scale illustrated one of the Summit’s recurring messages: cloud is both a foundation and a multiplier.

At the AWS Summit in Johannesburg, sessions covered automation, AI, machine learning, and data sovereignty. Phonetik stood out because it linked those capabilities to human need. For the audience, the message was that inclusion is not separate from innovation.

Said Schreuder: “As the world shifts to a video-first mode of communication, accessibility assets can and should become the new norm.”

* Arthur Goldstuck is CEO of World Wide Worx, editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za, and author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI – The African Edge”.