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• Transcript

  Justine (00:00): 

  So Brian, tell me when's the last time you shaped the future? 

  Brian (00:03): 

  Justine, I am the future. That's why we're hosting CES again. Big things are happening. And again, I'm just so glad that we're co-hosting together. 

  Justine (00:11): 

  I can't wait. It's so much fun. This is where visionaries, problem solvers and pioneers from everywhere around the globe come together to create solutions that shape our world. 

  Brian (00:20): 

  They're not just talking about what's next, they're building it, challenging the rules and making things happen. 

  Justine (00:26): 

  And when the world is watching, innovators, they show up. 

  Brian (00:29): 

  So the real question is, are you showing up? 

  Justine (00:33): 

  You know what to do? Register at CES.tech. The future is not going to wait for you. 

  James Kotecki (00:44): 

  This is CES Tech Talk. I'm James Kotecki exploring the trends shaping the world's most powerful tech event, CES 2026 in Las Vegas, January 6th through 9th. Today is all about accessibility, not just some checkbox or compliance requirements, but a driving force for innovation. Turns out when you consider the more than 1 billion people with disabilities worldwide, you can create solutions that make technology better for all of us. CES 2026 will put accessibility front and center at the Venetian with a new accessibility stage presented by Verizon Accessibility and the CTA Foundation. Here now to get us excited about tech's transformative power are two awesome accessibility leaders. Fred Moltz is Chief Accessibility Officer at Verizon, one of the world's largest telecommunications companies, and Paul Amadeus Lane is an accessibility consultant, TV and radio personality, keynote speaker and longtime champion of CES. Fred, Paul, welcome both of you to CES Tech Talk. 

  Paul Amadeus Lane (01:48): 

  Thank you, James. Great to be here. 

  Fred Moltz (01:52): 

  Yeah, James, really good to be here. Thank you. 

  James Kotecki (01:55): 

  Paul, I want to start with your personal story. Why are you an accessibility advocate and why are you focused on technology? 

  Paul Amadeus Lane (02:03): 

  Well, James, that is a good question. I would say just out of necessity, I was injured in an automobile accident. It'll be 33 years on January 21st, 2026, and when I first was injured, there was really nothing that was there for me to help me out to live an independent life. There were a few things out back in 1993 when it happened, but it wasn't something that I gravitated towards. So it wasn't until I got into a position where I can talk to those and positions of responsibility to let my voice be heard. That's CES. When I started broadcasting live there, I took my morning show there back in 2009. 

  (02:48): 

  So as I'm interviewing different tech giants, I always do a question is, how can someone like me use your product? And the first ones, would stumble over that at 2009, 2010, accessibility wasn't on anybody's radar, but just over the years being able to have conversations with ones covering different events and then ones asking me my input about accessibility and what could be done, that's how I really gotten to my other part of my career being accessibility consultant and also an advocate. 

  James Kotecki (03:20): 

  And Paul, are you comfortable sharing some of the technologies that you personally use or the kinds of help that you need that technology is able to help you with? 

  Paul Amadeus Lane (03:29): 

  Yeah, I really look at what smart speakers have done and where we're living at today and being able to use my voice to activate all my environmentals at home if I need them. Also, just being able to not bug my wife, who's also my caregiver to do everything for me. Just being able to have some type of independence and then for myself, being able to use my voice to assist in some of these different technologies, working with certain tech giants there and just helping them to see what can be done to help me or others like myself to live a more independent life. Voice activation is like my jam. That's what I always use because being a quadriplegic lower level, I can move my hands but I can't move my fingers. So that's what I really gravitate towards. 

  James Kotecki (04:19): 

  Wow. Well, it's really interesting to have that perspective on technology informed by your personal experience and looking forward to having more of that insight throughout this conversation. But I want to go to you, Fred, and find out a little bit more about your story. What drew you to this work in accessibility and what does it mean to be Verizon's Chief Accessibility Officer? 

  Fred Moltz (04:39): 

  Well, let me first off saying what is it like to be the Chief Accessibility Officer? It's awesome. I can put it to you that way. I love the job I'm doing. I've actually been with Verizon for 25 years in multiple leadership roles and then 10 years ago I was asked to start this accessibility program and honestly I had no idea what accessibility was at the time. And the funny part is I actually did know what accessibility was because I've had a number of family members growing up that did have different disabilities and working with them and some of the advocacy groups they were a part of as well as some of the different facilities that they were either working in or living in and just going through that care mechanism. I really did know what accessibility was, but I didn't know it when I was asked to do the job and I was like, sure we can make this work. 

  (05:30): 

  And immediately I just fell in love with it because you're looking at saying, I want to help somebody. Just like Pauls talking about independence. You want somebody to actually enjoy your product and service and I think that's just the key here is I just want everybody to love our products and services and making them accessible. That to me is table stakes. That's the least that we should be doing. It's when we go beyond compliance and we can talk a little bit of that later on if you like, but that's where I get really excited because I wasn't looking for this job. It found me. And I can tell you that I'm just very lucky because not only do I have a great job, it's also I have a great team that actually supports all the work that we're doing. It gives me the opportunity of a platform like this today with the two of you. 

  James Kotecki (06:16): 

  So Fred, can you give us a couple of examples of maybe just some accessibility projects that you're working on now or that you've worked on recently just to give us a flavor or a sampling of some of the ways accessibility shows up in Verizon products and Verizon ideas? 

  Fred Moltz (06:30): 

  Absolutely. So I'm going to give you two great examples on different ends of the spectrum in terms of technology and innovation as well as brand. So a little bit over a year ago, Verizon, we changed our brand, we changed our colors, our logo, the whole nine yards. At Verizon though my team, we were brought into that project on day one because accessibility really is part of Verizon's DNA. And so when we're looking at different logo options, we were looking at some of the imagery that was going to be presented with this rollout, the new brand. We were brought in to make sure from a font sizes were correct, color contrast was correct, you name it. We wanted to make sure that the brand represented not just a certain subset of Verizon customers but actually represented everybody, which to me is really where we should all be going. 

  (07:22): 

  And then the other part that excites me, I think that it's really important is that compliance in general is obviously table stakes for us. We want to make sure that we are WCAG compliant or we strive to be as compliant as possible, but where do we go beyond that? How do we go beyond compliance? And so we're part of projects from the inception, just like the brand project, but we're there from day one and that gives us the ability to work back with designers and developers and the business leads to talk about how to care for accessibility, whether it's a user story or it's a wire frame or some type of sketch design. We're part of that and that helps make sure A, we're striving for compliance, but B, working each week that's go beyond compliance, where can you do more? And the way we do a lot more of that beyond a compliance is about a year ago on Global Accessibility Awareness Day in 2024, we opened up our first accessibility technology lab here in New Jersey. 

  (08:21): 

  And so we are now bringing in people that could be customers, advocacy groups, employees, you name it, we're asking people to tell us their stories to walk in and really show to us what's working well and what can be improved on. Because I think Paul, you probably can help me on this one, it's one thing to think what's going with accessibility, but you really need to understand it from the end users. So those people who maybe they're blind or wheelchair user, whatever it may be, you need to hear their voices so they can tell you their stories so you can actually build a better product and service. 

  James Kotecki (08:56): 

  Going beyond compliance is a fascinating concept here when we talk about what accessibility focusing can mean for product development generally. But I am curious, is there some kind of defined corpus of accessibility issues or disabilities that does create effectively a series of boxes to check when you're designing for accessibility? Because it just strikes me that if we were to look at that list 50 years ago or 20 years ago, or Paul, you mentioned that in 2009, 2010 maybe people still weren't as focused on it as they even are today. That definition and that corpus of ideas is probably constantly changing and updating and people are finding new ways to express maybe the accessibility issues that they have that they maybe even previously didn't know how to define. So Fred, is there at Verizon a kind of list that you have or maintain for understanding how to design for this stuff? 

  Fred Moltz (09:57): 

  It's a great question. Is there a checklist? Do people know? Why is it so hard? Why were we not doing it 10 years ago, 50 years ago? And I think the simple I answer is people just are not aware of accessibility and the requirements. So normally I noticed when I first started doing this is that I've talked to people about accessibility and they were like, "Well, what's accessibility?" And that's when you start thinking with any good accessibility program, you have to really make sure, yes, you need processes, tools and so on and so forth to help build this stuff out. But it's the education and awareness piece that I think is really crucial for a lot of organizations to be aware of because you start talking about people with disabilities, one or four people. You can start relating it to anybody in a room of five people. Chances are if somebody knows somebody with a disability or has a disability, and that's whether it's a visible or an invisible disability. 

  James Kotecki (10:51): 

  Paul, you said you've been coming to CES for a long time and talking to tech leaders at CES. How have you seen accessibility themes evolve at CES over the years? Because I imagine that that's also a snapshot of how the accessibility mindset has evolved in the tech industry generally. 

  Paul Amadeus Lane (11:09): 

  Well, I am so grateful that we have it now at CES. When I first started going, it was non-existent, but I would always bring it up. And then right before COVID, maybe a few years before COVID, we started to see a shift now about more accessibility things being taught about and seen at CES. So when I got in contact with Steve Ewell, he and I had some great conversations together and even Kinsey Fabrizio, who was a new president, she and I had a conversation, I want to say the first CES we got back before COVID. And one of the questions I asked her, "Hey, what's going to be happening accessibility wise at this year's CES?" And she gave me a look like, just wait. You're going to see. So I was so glad to see all this come to fruition. And if I could, James, I just wanted to go back to about how they bring different people in to test out the lab in Verizon. 

  (12:03): 

  And I just want to commend Fred on that because disabilities, we're not a monolith. Me being a quadriplegic, you bring in three or four different quadriplegics, we're all going to have different needs because there's certain things that I can do that others cannot do. So it makes accessibility and really this crusade that we're on challenging at times because not one size fits all. And that's why it's great with Fred and them doing, bringing other, all different types of disabilities in to find out what can we do as a consensus as we build more. And that's the cool thing about CES as well too, especially when it comes to the different things that the foundation is doing, bringing different industries in, startups in, so that we can see things from the ground up, how we can really help our community out. 

  James Kotecki (12:52): 

  I imagine that there is a spectrum of corporate ideas about accessibility. On the very positive side, you have folks who understand that designing for accessibility and centering that in product design is a way not just to serve the people who need those enablements, but is also just good for everybody in general. A great example is some people need to have captions on videos, but then a lot of people who don't necessarily need them, just like the captions on video. So when you design for accessibility, you actually make things that can have a broader appeal as well. And so that's also potentially very good for business. 

  (13:26): 

  And then on the other side of the spectrum, you might have folks who are still very, maybe in a throwback mindset, this is just a box to check, this is just a cost center. I want to check in with you both on where we think the industry is right now, where most people are. I mean, it sounds like we've gone through an evolution and progress along that spectrum, but Paul, do you think there are still some folks out there and maybe you encounter them who really still don't get it and they just still think of this as just something they have to do? 

  Paul Amadeus Lane (13:56): 

  You know what, James? We are, I want to say we're like in the middle right now of ones who are willing to do this and ones who are not. I really think we're making some really good strides at the beginning of last year. Beginning of this year, we started things slow down because a couple of companies that I work with personally, a lot of the accessibility things that we had planned were slowed down a little bit, but glad to say they're ramping back up now. Here's what I say to organizations and big tech companies who don't really see the benefit of accessibility. I always tell them, you will. And they look at me, what do you mean I will? Everybody's going to be a part of us one day, some less severe than others, but somebody's going to age into some type of disability. 

  (14:43): 

  When that happens, don't you want to keep your independence as much as you can? So I try to appeal to their heartstrings, but I know sometimes it's all about the purse strings that are making the decisions. But if there is a way, if they can just talk with us. And that's why ones who I work with always tell them, when you go to your bosses to try to get budgets for all this, bring us along with you because we can tell our story. When they see us up and personal and they see us, our story, that might move the, instead of saying, oh, Fred needs money for this. Oh, Fred always needs money for this. But if Fred brings three or four people from the community in there, they can see our struggles, see what we're going through, and sometimes they get people to think, yeah, we need to at least do something. 

  James Kotecki (15:32): 

  And Fred, have you seen a change? I mean, you said you've been doing this for I think 10 years at Verizon. Where do you think the industry is or maybe even a snapshot within Verizon of how attitudes have changed or progressed or maybe just understandings of how beneficial focusing on accessibility can be? 

  Fred Moltz (15:48): 

  I think I agree with Paul overall, I think we're in the middle there, from what I've seen over the last 10 years. Primarily, I'll go back with the original concept. I don't ever think there's people that don't care about accessibility, they just don't understand. And quite honestly, they don't understand how easy it is to bake it in the beginning. And I'm always talking about remarkable experiences. That's what we talk about at Verizon. We always want to provide a remarkable experience. Are you creating a remarkable experience for 75% of your potential customers or new customers, or do you want to build it for 100%? And why I say that 75 is because if one in four people in the United States has a disability, why would you want to just try to win over 75%? You really want the market share of 100%. 

  (16:35): 

  That's what I think any good company is looking for. And we also know that if you built it accessible, it's a great experience for everyone. People talk about the simple scenario of a curb cutout in a sidewalk. Easy to talk about. You brought closed captioning. I have three children, I can't say how many times I walk into their rooms and they have closed captioning up on their TVs, and the first couple times I was blown away. I'm like, why are you doing that? Oh, I want to listen to this and that and I want to watch the words because I want to know what's going on. And so when you take that as now as a luxury for someone who's not deaf or hard of hearing, that's just how they want to do it. And it was built because of that hard of hearing individuals. 

  (17:17): 

  That's a win-win. That shows you the experience that's good for everybody. So I just do think that we've evolved. I know at Verizon, it's part of who we are. I don't get pushback. People hear me coming. They're actually pretty excited now. I would say 10 years ago there were people like, "Oh, Fred, now I've got people who call me up about accessibility issues, aren't even accessibility issues." And I'm like, "I don't know how to help you. It's not accessibility." "But you do accessibility so you can work with this one too." And I'm like, "Okay." Again, if we're making a better experience or helping people have a little more independence, that's really what it comes down to and that's what makes it a lot of fun. 

  James Kotecki (17:53): 

  Fred, congratulations for being a victim of your own success. I want to talk a little bit about some of the specific technologies folks might encounter at CES and how accessibility plays into that. Starting of course with AI. So Paul, what are you expecting in terms of AI at CES this year when it comes to accessibility? And if not at CES, maybe just more broadly, how is AI and the conversation around AI shaping the way we think about accessibility now? 

  Paul Amadeus Lane (18:19): 

  Well, I was an early adopter of what AI is going to do for our community and some of my colleagues, and I don't see eye to eye what I'm about to say, but I look at AI as the great equalizer when it comes to accessibility. It will allow our communities to do more things than we could before AI existed. Machine learning, if they learn certain aspects of our movements, of our speech, of just our life can be so beneficial for us. 

  (18:58): 

  And I'm hoping that we really start to evolve AI into adaptive equipment like wheelchairs, canes, assistive devices like that because I think that is really just going to open up the floodgates of just what all these equipments can do for us as well as making sure that our community can live a really, really independent life, especially in the times in which we're living in. People are living longer and they're living longer with disabilities. I'm almost 30, 33 years post injury and that's unheard of. So one's living longer and longer, but we want to live a more fulfilled life and I think AI is going to help us to do that. 

  James Kotecki (19:45): 

  Fred, I want to talk about another technology close to home for you, and that's 5G and advanced connectivity. What are some of the ways that that's playing into the accessibility conversation? 

  Fred Moltz (19:56): 

  I really believe that the networks that we have, whether it's our wireless 5G network or it's our home broadband networks, they are so powerful. And with AI and some of these technologies we're talking about from assistive tech perspective, you need the bandwidth and we're providing that and we're allowing those type of devices or that processing to go through our network, which is key, because you don't want the latency, you want this to be as real-time as possible because that's what you expect as an end user. 

  (20:29): 

  It's exciting because if you look at technology, you look at networks from 10 years ago versus today, it's day and night and it's no different than a concept of AI. Look at AI three years ago and look at where AI is today. The possibilities are just plentiful. There's no way of putting it. And I really think that when we start looking at devices that are computing to help provide insights to a person with a disability, whether a disability is, whether they're an aging person with a disability, maybe it's aging with whole medical, put this all together, you need that strong network to handle all that computing and to provide that real-time data. 

  James Kotecki (21:16): 

  I want to bring in another set of technologies here. AR, VR, XR, smart glasses. Paul, what's more exciting to you just from a personal perspective, going into a virtual world in a more seamless way or being better able to move around in the physical world with things like robotics and adaptive devices that we were talking about? 

  Paul Amadeus Lane (21:37): 

  Honestly, I'm in the middle again because I love them both. I love smart glasses, I love also VR as well too. I actually was on a project with Meta a couple of years ago. We were working on the possibilities of this and one of the things that excites me if we're able to get this right, and I think this is where AI comes in, if we can operate these things without using any buttons, without using any complex movements, because ones like myself, we can't do it. We can barely get the helmet on of a VR. We can put glasses on. All those things are great. We have to make sure that we can use them to the fullest. Because I'm a tech guy to the heart. I'll get it, I'll play with it, but I'll get frustrated if I'm not able to use certain things. But I think whichever one of those technologies cracked the code of allowing us to use it without a lot of complex things to do, that's what I'm most exciting for. 

  James Kotecki (22:40): 

  Fred, I want to give you a chance to talk a bit about what we might expect on the accessibility stage at CES 2026. That stage of course is sponsored by the Consumer Technology Association's Foundation, but also Verizon Accessibility. So what can we look forward to there? 

  Fred Moltz (22:58): 

  You're going to see a lot of excitement. I will say, I want to give a call-out to Steve Ewell who him and I were talking about this stage at CES 2025. And to see this come to fruition is really exciting. CTA Foundation has done a great job over the last couple of years with accessibility content and spreading that education awareness, and I've been very proud of working with them on that. This is going to bring it to the next level. You're going to have so much more content and more importantly, additional startups and large companies, small companies talking about accessibility and how they are hearing for it. And hopefully people are learning from each other because we're all in this together. 

  (23:42): 

  It's not one company against another company when it comes to who's better at accessibility. That's not the way this works. We're all in this together. It's one large ecosystem. And I think that all these conversations that are going to take place on this stage that is dedicated for accessibility is just a testament of what the CTA Foundation's been doing. It's a testament of where Verizon, we've been looking to make sure that accessibility is up front in everything that we are doing in our partners and for our customers. I'm very excited because I just think that how cool is it going to be to finally have an accessibility stage and event that is as so big as CES. 

  James Kotecki (24:22): 

  And Paul, that's seemingly partially a testament to your advocacy for accessibility over the years. So I imagine that you're excited about the accessibility stage. What else are you excited about this particular CES 2026? 

  Paul Amadeus Lane (24:38): 

  Well, I'm definitely excited about that stage. I remember when I got the email that it was going to happen and then our good friends at Verizon were sponsoring it. I was like, this is totally amazing. It really just showed again what hard work and determination can do and not giving up. And one of the things that I really appreciate about CES is getting to know more people who are advocates like myself, who are doing some great things, finding out what they're doing, making new connections, seeing ways that we can all work together to really fulfill what we're trying to do and also just the conversations we're going to have around it and see what's going to be like the buzzword coming out of there when it comes to accessibility. That's what I'm excited for. I'm excited to see Fred and meet him face to face. 

  (25:27): 

  I'm excited to see you, James and all the rest of the folks over at CES and just, it's like a high school reunion. It's like the Super Bowl. We see everyone. We have the same mindset and it's really, really awesome that we can all get together and just be a part of something amazing. And what I'm also excited about is how far we've come with assistive and adaptive technologies and accessibility when it comes to health, especially for us. It would be nice to see if there's something out there that can monitor our vitals 24/7 and that can alert medical professionals, a caregiver or something. So I'm looking to see what's new out there, what can we build upon what we already have. So that's what I'm really, really excited for. 

  James Kotecki (26:15): 

  Paul Amadeus Lane, there is no doubt that you are a TV and radio personality and keynote speaker because you got us really excited and pumped there for the conversation around accessibility that is going to be had at CES 2026. And I'd like to thank you and Fred Moltz, the Chief Accessibility Officer at Verizon for joining us here to preview that conversation and get everybody ready for CES in Las Vegas. So Fred and Paul, truly, thank you both for joining us today on CES Tech Talk. 

  Fred Moltz (26:44): 

  Thank you. 

  Paul Amadeus Lane (26:45): 

  Thank you so much, James. Really an honor, and it was an honor to be with Fred as well too. 

  James Kotecki (26:50): 

  And it is my honor to host this show. That's it for now, but there's always more tech to talk about, so be sure to follow, subscribe, like, comment, and whatever else you need to do to keep the algorithms happy. You can get even more CES and prepare for Vegas at CES.tech. That's C-E-S.T-E-C-H. Our show is produced by Nicole Vidovich with help from Paige Morris and Doug Weinbaum. Recorded by Andrew Linn and edited by Third Spoon. I'm James Kotecki, talking tech on CES Tech Talk.