Using ChatGPT to navigate the world and run a nonprofit while blind

Bradford and Bryan Manning have spent their lives adapting to a world that was not designed with them in mind. Both brothers live with Stargardt disease, a rare inherited condition that has taken much of their central vision, making everyday tasks like navigating a crowded street or answering emails far more difficult.

But over time, the same challenge that once set them apart from others became something that brought them closer together. Their shared experience with vision loss gave them a deep connection to one another, as well as to a community of other visually impaired people they wanted to support.

In May 2016, the brothers founded Two Blind Brothers, a nonprofit apparel company that uses its products and platform to raise awareness, support blindness research, and create more opportunities for the blind community.

Today, ChatGPT has become an increasingly important part of that mission, helping Bradford and Bryan navigate everyday life with more independence while giving them new ways to run and grow Two Blind Brothers.

For Bradford and Bryan, what makes ChatGPT especially meaningful is how directly it addresses something they encounter every day: so much of modern life still depends on being able to see.

Reading a menu, filling out a form, finding a specific piece of information online, or reading a spreadsheet can require significantly more time, effort, or outside help when you have limited vision.

Those moments may seem small, but they add up. They can shape how people learn, how they work, and which opportunities feel attainable.

ChatGPT is changing that equation for the brothers and the rest of the blind community. By turning visual information into something they can hear, understand, and act on, it gives them more direct access to the world around them. Tasks that once required an extensive workaround are now within the brothers’ reach.

As Bradford puts it, “Accessibility means removing a barrier,” which is exactly what ChatGPT does.

For the brothers, ChatGPT has become a way to turn information that is difficult to see into something they can act on.

That can be as simple as pointing a camera at the back of a monitor and asking which port to use. Bradford recently used ChatGPT Live to locate a DisplayPort among several nearly identical inputs, a task he would normally have asked his wife or a friend to help with.

ChatGPT also shows up as they move through the world. They can use voice to ask what a building looks like, where a landmark is, or how to get from an airport gate to rideshare pickup.

At work, the same accessibility is changing how they run Two Blind Brothers. Spreadsheets once required Bradford to magnify the screen, keep track of rows and columns, and move cell by cell just to find a number. Now he can ask ChatGPT to analyze the data, surface anomalies, or tell him where something looks wrong. He also connects the tool to his email so he can ask what needs his attention instead of working through every message himself.

Increasingly, they are using ChatGPT not just to retrieve information, but to move work forward. They use voice to brainstorm and dictate, analyze fundraising data, and build presentations for Thrive Blind, their initiative designed to connect young people in the blind community with training and career opportunities.

With ChatGPT now woven into how they live and work, Bradford and Bryan are more excited about the future than ever. They see a world where people in the blind community can pursue bigger ambitions and be known first for what they create, lead, and accomplish. Bradford imagines blindness becoming “maybe the second or third thing that they’re known for.”

For the brothers, that represents something much bigger than convenience. It is a new sense of possibility for the community they have spent nearly a decade building for, and one they are eager to help move forward.

Learn more about their work supporting the blind community through Two Blind Brothers.⁠(opens in a new window)