What is ADT Studio?
The open-source desktop tool that turns a PDF into an ADT — how it runs, what it costs, and where it's been used.
ADT Studio is a tool that turns a PDF into an accessible digital textbook — audio narration, structured layouts, translations, and sign language, all built in, with no coding required.
- Runs on your machine. The source PDF stays with you; only the AI calls need internet, and a finished ADT works fully offline.
- Guided, step by step. From importing a PDF to exporting a finished package — no coding required.
- Built toward AI provider choice. Today, the main pipeline relies on OpenAI, with growing support for other providers. Most providers charge per use — see AI providers and costs.
- Free and open source. Licensed under AGPL-3.0, source on GitHub — free for anyone to use.
Who's behind ADT Studio
ADT Studio is developed as an open-source project by UNICEF, with support from OpenAI, NEES, and Ceibal.
Where ADT Studio has been used
Pilots with documented evidence span countries across Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, as part of the initiative. UNICEF Innocenti has conducted implementation research across several of these contexts. See the Accessible Textbooks for All initiative for the current list of participating countries.
Three live demos give a sense of what the tool produces, from pure AI output to closely reviewed content:
Momo and the Leopards
A multilingual storybook from Bhutan, with no manual edits to the AI output.
Queremos Participar
An informative reader from Uruguay, lightly edited after AI processing.
Cuaderno 5, Chapter 1
A grade 5 textbook with activities from Uruguay, with more extensive human curation.
The principles behind ADT Studio
ADT Studio is built around six ideas that shape how it works.
ADT Studio and Universal Design for Learning
ADT Studio puts into practice Universal Design for Learning (UDL) — designing content that works for the widest range of learners from the start, rather than adapting it afterward. An ADT delivers on UDL's first principle directly: the same content, offered through multiple ways in — reading, listening, image descriptions, language switching — at scale.