AI technology is constantly evolving, offering exciting opportunities for independence and accessibility for people with sight loss. From everyday tasks at home to navigating new environments, these tools are breaking down barriers by providing visual information instantly.
In this blog, we’re exploring how AI can be used to describe images, giving you a hands-on look at how different tools compare.
We’ll test those specifically designed for people with sight loss like Be My AI, Access AI, Seeing AI and Picture Smart AI. We’ll also test ChatGPT, a leading AI tool that many people use and isn’t specifically for people with sight loss.
Each of these tools aims to provide detailed descriptions of images, but how do they measure up when faced with the same pictures? We’ll be uploading the same two images to each tool and sharing the exact description they generate, giving you a practical side-by-side comparison.
Whether you have sight loss yourself, support someone who might benefit from these tools, or are a content creator looking to make your work more accessible, this experiment will offer real insights into the strengths, differences, and potential of these technologies.
For each tool, we’ll give a brief overview before diving into the best part—seeing it in action. It’s worth mentioning that, because these tools generate descriptions using natural language, the same image uploaded multiple times may result in slightly different descriptions. For the purpose of this blog, we’ll upload an image once to each tool and share the exact description generated at that moment.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
Here are the two images featured in this blog: an infographic showcasing the positive outcomes of our Sight Loss Services and a photo from a drama workshop at our Arts and Crafts Centre.
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ChatGPT
ChatGPT is an AI tool that can help with almost anything. This could be doing research, drafting content, or analysing data. It can generate image descriptions too.
ChatGPT is mostly accessible, both on the website and through the app. There are some unlabelled buttons in the chat interface, but the accessibility of the ChatGPT interface has come on leaps and bounds since launch.
How good is ChatGPT at describing images? For our test, we uploaded an image to the ChatGPT iOS app and sent the prompt ‘please describe this image’. We used a free ChatGPT account.