Augmenting human capital through AI: the untapped potential of neurodivergent thinking

20% of the UK population is estimated to be neurodivergent, with conditions like autism, ADHD, or dyslexia. This amounts to a staggering 13 million people. Despite this, our education and business settings often do not support neurodivergent people to be comfortable, confident and successful. Which is why fear of stigma and discrimination is widespread. According to the Neurodiversity in Business industry group two thirds of neurodivergent employees worry about discrimination from management, with 55% worried about judgement from colleagues.

ONS data shows that nearly a third of UK businesses are experiencing labour shortages. And one in five neurodivergent people are unemployed. It’s clear the current system is neglecting a massive part of the workforce and not fulfilling its productivity potential. AI has the potential to help level the field.

AI a facilitator in accessibility and inclusion

AI has the potential to help neurodivergent individuals overcome barriers that traditionally exist in workplaces and educational establishments. One important area AI can help is in information processing and communication. AI has capabilities to swiftly process large amounts of data and present it in various long and short visual, written, and spoken formats. This technology offers navigation, memory aids, organisation tools, reading automation, summarisation, and more. This technology has incredible potential to present rapid and tailored assistance to neurodivergent people. For instance, live AI transcription technologies are helping to keep track of what has been agreed upon in meetings and serve as memory aids.

For people with dyslexia (2 million in the UK) AI can fill a vital gap in reading speed and comprehension. While neurotypical people read at the average speed of 250 words per minute, people with dyslexia read at a speed of 50 to 150 words per minute – a significant disparity. Text-to-speech tools and summarisation tools are making headway in closing this gap. A study published by the National Library of Medicine also found that the use of AI text-to-speech tools has a significant positive impact on reading comprehension scores.

Harness untapped human capital

Neurodiversity acknowledges that not all brains think and process information the same. It’s been argued that neurodivergence offers a distinctive set of skills – for instance, dyslexic thinking, which is a recognised skill on LinkedIn. With this neurodivergence, people are able to better recognise patterns, make cross-context and thematic connections, and generally tend to be more inquisitive and creative than the average neurotypical person. AI tools double down on these strengths while mitigating potentially perceived weaknesses.

For example, lack of focus and slow or impaired reading is a common feature across neurodivergencies. Research engines can quickly produce reports of considerable breadth and depth that would have taken potentially dozens of hours to read. People with dyspraxia can often struggle to link together information that neuronormative people find easy. AI can help clearly show how different concepts tie together to help mitigate this.

Thus, well-tailored AI can boost the productivity and innovation of the existing workforce – at minimal cost. Due to AI’s self-learning models, workforce training can be decentralised and tailored to each individual and their skill sets. This all can be achieved at a fraction of the cost of traditional workplace training due to the scalability of AI training.

Preparing the workforce

According to the World Economic Forum’s The Future of Work Report 2025, 39% of workers’ core skills will change by 2030. And according to research from the Higher Education Policy Institute think-tank, over nine out of ten undergraduate students are using AI in some form.

The challenge for universities as well as employers is to normalise AI use and encourage discussion about how it can be used to improve outcomes. By embracing AI tools for neurodivergent people, this fosters an open discussion about how AI can be used by both neurodivergent and neuronormative people.

By setting standards and having open discussions on AI use cases, neurodivergent students will not get a penalty for struggling to do something that they won’t have to do in their day-to-day work. They’ll be able to show their individual skillset to employers within the education system, rather than only within the workforce, leading to a better understanding of neurodivergence skills and being able to benefit from this AI technology at the door of the employer.

Next steps

The core of neurodivergence is diverting from the standard, but AI is reshaping what is understood as highly valued skills in the workplace. It adds new applications, improving the skills of the current worker but also opening the door for a set of emerging skills that, in combination with applications of AI technologies, can boost the use and productivity of human capital for universities and employers.

So, an emerging challenge for AI tech companies is not just to design AI with unique functions. People are unique. We need to tailor AI to augment people’s diverging configuration of skills to unleash the full potential of our collective human capital.