Why Neurodiversity Will Lead The Way In The AI Era

One in five employees today identifies as neurodivergent – as having autism, ADHD, dyslexia, or other cognitive variations – and that’s only going to grow. According to research from ZenBusiness, fully half of Gen-Z identifies with neurodivergence on some level.

Infillion’s Chief Growth Officer Laurel Rossi, who is also the co-founder and chair of neurodiversity and disability job placement nonprofit Creative Spirit, hosted a panel on the Monday morning of Cannes Lions to spotlight two brand-new initiatives that center the neurodivergent community: Havas’ new Neuroverse division, and consultancy The Neu Project. She was joined by Havas Health VP of Content Kathryn Parsons and The Neu Project co-founder and chief impact officer Megan Henshall, both of whom are openly autistic.

“We’re here to talk about unlocking the potential – the human potential – of this audience, not just in the workplace but in a technology-enabled world,” Rossi said.

The conversation was a fitting kickoff to Cannes. The advertising industry, recognizing its reliance not just on creativity but on the ability to connect on a human level, has the opportunity to lead the way in recognizing neurodiversity’s importance not just in how it functions as a business sector, but crucially, how neurodiversity will thrive and lead the way as the industry is transformed by artificial intelligence.

Adapting the world for neurodivergence
But advertising has still been slow to recognize this potential. Parsons told the story of Neuroverse’s genesis, where she was having coffee with Havas CEO Donna Murphy and relating that she felt unseen by traditional advertising. “I was complaining about all the ways that advertising misses the mark, and why when I see an ad on the TV I feel absolutely nothing for it,” Parsons said. Murphy told her that Parsons had identified a business opportunity. Neurodivergent people, after all, can find retail shopping experiences to be unpleasant sensory overloads – which can make them walk out of a store without making a purchase. How much would consumer businesses grow if this were addressed?

“If you aren’t inviting them in you’re going to be pushing them out, and they’re going to be taking their purchasing power with them,” Parsons explained. It’s often about small and rather mundane changes, too, rather than grand gestures. “Whenever you think about why somebody stops doing something, why do they abandon a cart, why do they walk out of a store, why do they turn off that ad, you have to look at what’s causing that friction and then decide how can I make that experience better –, and to me that’s more exciting than that ‘next big thing.’”

Megan Henshall agreed: “Supporting neurodivergent communities does translate directly to the bottom line.”

This applies to how businesses run internally, too. Henshall pointed to surveys that show shockingly low levels of employee satisfaction and theorized that a major part of it was that neurodivergent employees are not having their needs met. “We can either support [neurodiversity], and design for it, and co-create for those individuals, or it becomes an organizational liability,” she said. Creating that support system means “accessible corporate spaces and practices, having quiet spaces, having sensory tools, having really thoughtful practices for amplification,” she explained. Peer support networks, as well as support for the managers of neurodivergent employees, are also key in the workplace. So is taking neurodivergence into account when designing return-to-office or work-from-home policies.

“These are practices that benefit everyone in your corporation,” Infillion’s Laurel Rossi underscored.

The AI opportunity
Neurodivergence manifests in completely different ways for different individuals, and so there’s no one-size-fits-all way to address their needs. That’s where artificial intelligence can come in.

“For me, AI has been so exciting because now that personalization is possible,” Parsons said. “We all sit differently on the scales of our sensitivities and what we need, but the thing about AI, you can use AI as a layer to create that personalization.” AI can also be used, as Rossi noted, to expedite accessibility features within digital ads like closed captioning and the ability to slow down audio for consumers who require more time to process information.

But AI isn’t just poised to help neurodivergent people; it works in the reverse, too. Neurodivergent employees and executives are primed to thrive and lead as artificial intelligence upends the working world, one industry after another. They’re used to thinking outside the box and operating in a world where unfamiliarity is the norm.

“We’re seeing all of this new data coming out from CEOs of leaders and organizations where they want these people who are highly creative and highly innovative,” Megan Henshall said. “These are the skills of the future.”

“As we are in the age of AI, you have to think: Who’s the mind behind the machine?” Kathryn Parsons posed to the audience. “Is it a nonlinear thinker who can think in multiple threads [and] who can step up in the coming age of quantum, or is it someone who is linear and who has done something the entire way, that now when they use generative AI is depending on generative AI to tell them what is the next step? You need someone who’s going to challenge that machine.”

Parsons concluded, “One of the things you’ll learn about neurodivergence is we do love to challenge the status quo.”

The Infillion team is always down for a conversation about how to make ads work better for the neurodivergent community. Reach out today.