By Folu Adebayo

I’ve been thinking about this question for a while now.

What if the problem was never the individual…but the way the world was designed?

For years, the conversation around neurodiversity has quietly leaned in one direction, that those who think or communicate differently need to adjust. Fit in. Learn to operate within systems that were never really built for them.

You see it everywhere.

In schools that reward one way of learning.

In workplaces that value one way of thinking.

In everyday interactions that expect one way of communicating.

So we ask, almost without thinking: How can they fit in?

But maybe we should be asking something else entirely.

Why hasn’t the world learned to fit them?
For many families, this isn’t a theory. It’s just life.

There’s no clear roadmap. You figure things out as you go. Some days you feel like you’re making progress, other days it feels like you’re starting again.

You find yourself stepping into roles you never imagined. Most often, you are either explaining, researching or advocating.

And sometimes, just hoping that someone, anyone will take the time to really understand your child.

As a mother, this is not something I observe from a distance. It is my life…

My son, Akintade, is autistic.

There have been moments over the years where communication felt… difficult. Not because he didn’t have something to say, but because the world didn’t always offer him the right way to say it.

And there were times I would look at him and know with absolute certainty that there was so much inside him waiting to be expressed, if only the world knew how to listen.

And that’s something I think we often get wrong.

We see silence and assume there’s nothing there.

We see difference and assume there’s a limitation.

But that hasn’t been my experience as a techie mother of an autistic child. I have used several technologies to facilitate my son’s communication skills.

What I’ve seen over time is that when the right support shows up, things begin to shift.
Not in dramatic, headline-making ways. But in quiet, meaningful ones.

Moments where expression becomes easier.
Moments where connection feels possible.
Moments where he engages with the world on his own terms.

Technology has played a part in that
Not as a solution to everything. But as a bridge.

And those moments change how you see things.

You start to realise that the issue was never ability.

It was access.
It was design.
It was understanding.

And that’s where artificial intelligence starts to matter, not as a buzzword, but as something with real potential. Because unlike traditional systems, AI has the ability to adapt.

It can meet people where they are. It can support different ways of learning, different ways of communicating, different ways of processing the world.

And for neurodiverse individuals like my son, that’s powerful. It shifts the conversation.

Away from “fixing” the individual…
and towards supporting their potential.
But I also think we need to be honest about something.

Technology on its own is not enough.
If anything, we’ve already seen what happens when systems are built without real understanding. They exclude. They overlook. They miss the people who need them most.

AI will be no different if we’re not intentional.

If neurodiverse individuals are not part of the conversation — not just as users, but as voices that shape these systems — then we risk repeating the same patterns.

Just at a much bigger scale.

And that would be a missed opportunity.

Because this moment, we’re in right now… it matters.

We’re not just building tools.

We’re shaping the kind of world people will live in.

When I think about the future of AI, I don’t just think about how advanced it will become.

I think about whether it will be more thoughtful.

More inclusive.

More aware of the fact that not everyone experiences the world in the same way.
Through my journey with Akintade, I’ve learned something that stays with me.

Every person has a voice.

It might not always sound the way we expect.

It might not always be easy to understand straight away.

But it’s there.

And when the right support is in place, when the right tools exist, when the right mindset is applied that voice can be heard.
So maybe that’s the real question we should be asking as we continue to build and invest in artificial intelligence:

Who are we building it for?

Because a future driven by technology should also be a future guided by empathy.

Otherwise, we risk creating something powerful…that still leaves people behind.

And that, to me, would not be a failure of technology.

It would be a failure of humanity.