Australia's NDIS Framework for AI-Enabled Assistive Technology

In February 2026 Australia's National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) published a Framework for Artificial Intelligence-enabled Assistive Technology, developed for it by CSIRO's Australian e-Health Research Centre, to guide how AI-enabled assistive devices and software are designed, assessed and funded as supports under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
The framework sets out six principles — user experience, value, quality, safety, privacy and security, and human rights — meant to help NDIS participants, providers and technology developers judge whether an AI-enabled assistive technology is safe and effective before it reaches the market. CSIRO built it from interviews with NDIS participants, their families, carers and other supporters about their needs and experiences with AI, combined with focus groups with industry and service providers, and grounded it in existing international assistive-technology and AI-assessment guidelines.
A peer-reviewed account of the framework's principles-based approach was published in Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology in 2025, and CSIRO is now developing a national plan to roll the framework out across the AI-enabled assistive-technology market, including resources to help participants and clinicians compare the risks and benefits of emerging technologies.
As a governance framework rather than a deployed product, it has no participant outcome data yet: its real-world value will depend on how the NDIA operationalises it into approval, funding and provider-conduct rules, which had not been finalised at the time of writing.

Read the full analysis: https://www.ndis.gov.au/news/8492-framework-artificial-intelligence-enabled-assistive-technology-supports-under-ndis