SONZO AI

Deaf-led · Patent-pending · Async-first

Accessibility built by the people it's built for.

SonZo AI helps public entities, universities, and SaaS vendors meet the ADA Title II deadlines — with WCAG audits, ASL technology, and something no scanner offers: a Deaf engineer reviewing your services from the inside.

Get the free 2027 Readiness Checklist Email dawnena@sonzo.io
— days until the April 26, 2027 ADA Title II compliance date (entities 50,000+). Smaller entities: April 26, 2028.

Services

Fixed scope. Fixed price. Entirely in writing.

Every engagement is async-first and produces documentation your compliance file can stand on. No meetings required — ever.

Deaf-Centered Accessibility Sprint

$6,500

For public entities and universities preparing for April 2027. A complete accessibility baseline in 2–3 weeks.

  • WCAG 2.1 AA audit — manual expert review, not just scans
  • Deaf-user effective-communication review
  • Prioritized remediation roadmap
  • Compliance-readiness memo for your file

RFP-Ready in 30 Days

$4,500

For SaaS vendors selling into government and education whose next RFP requires an Accessibility Conformance Report.

  • Product audit against WCAG 2.1 AA
  • Defensible ACR (VPAT 2.5), expert-authored
  • Remediation punch list your dev team can run

ASL Access Partner

from $1,500/mo

Ongoing ASL content translation and accessibility advisory for organizations with recurring public communications.

  • ASL video translation, human-reviewed
  • Async advisory, always in writing
  • Quarterly re-audit on the upper tier

Technology & Research

Real ASL technology, built with rigor.

The animation behind this page's hero is our subject matter: skeletal keypoints — the raw material of sign language recognition.

USPTO patent-pendingReal-time ASL recognition pipeline with register-aware translation (#63/918,518)
Published researcharXiv paper on 3D CNN + LSTM sign language recognition architecture
Gallaudet UniversityDoctoral research: Deaf-centered evaluation of AI accessibility systems (NSF NRT)
DeafTech 2026 · ViennaPresented Deaf-centered AI avatar accessibility at TU Wien

Founder

Dawnena Key

Dawnena is a Deaf engineer and native ASL user with 15+ years in enterprise software — Amazon Project Kuiper, Intuit, and financial services — and an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation. She founded SonZo AI on a simple conviction: accessibility technology should be led by the people who depend on it.

She holds a patent-pending in real-time American Sign Language recognition, has published peer-reviewed research on sign language AI, and begins doctoral research at Gallaudet University in the NSF-funded Accessible Human-Centered Computing program in Fall 2026. Her accessibility platform work earned a W3 Silver Award and runs on Colorado state government websites.

SonZo is named for Dawnena's grandchildren, Sonny and Zoë. The logo — a child's hand held in an adult's, ringed by the four directions — carries a teaching from her grandmother: build for the generations who aren't in the room yet.

Start with the checklist.

Twenty checkpoints. Six steps. An honest self-score on whether your 2027 timeline still works.

Get the free checklist