The opportunity at a glance
Cerebral Palsy Australia wanted to make it easier for people living with cerebral palsy, their families and carers to find trusted information through its My CP Guide platform. Partnering with Arinco, the organisation designed and launched an AI assistant that lets people ask questions in natural language and receive answers grounded in approved content, while maintaining the accessibility, safety and editorial control central to the platform.
About Cerebral Palsy Australia
Cerebral Palsy Australia is a not-for-profit organisation supporting people living with cerebral palsy, their families and carers through advocacy, information and community connection.
Its My CP Guide platform launched in late 2022, bringing together evidence-based information covering health, wellbeing, education, employment, relationships and everyday life. Co-designed with the cerebral palsy community, the platform draws on trusted Australian and international resources reviewed for relevance to people living in Australia. Since launching, My CP Guide has attracted more than 207,000 users and now receives approximately 1,000 engaged sessions each month.
Business challenge
My CP Guide was created in response to a challenge faced by people living with cerebral palsy: information was often fragmented, and it could be difficult to know which sources to trust.
The platform had brought more than 1,000 resources together in one place, but as the content library grew, finding the right information became more difficult. Its existing search function worked well for specific keywords, but people increasingly expected to ask questions in their own words and receive relevant answers. Navigating multiple pages and resources could also create barriers for people with limited dexterity or other accessibility needs. Cerebral Palsy Australia wanted to improve how people accessed information while retaining control over its quality. My CP Guide covers information from Australia and overseas, reviewed for credibility and relevance to people living in Australia. Any new approach needed to preserve that trust, make sources visible and maintain appropriate safeguards around sensitive or health-related questions.
Research with the community also highlighted different information needs across life stages. Adults wanted easier access to information relevant to their circumstances, while parents and carers often sought concise guidance and practical next steps. The platform needed to support these different experiences while providing consistent, trustworthy information.
With a small team managing the platform, Cerebral Palsy Australia needed an expert partner to help improve the user experience and introduce AI in a way that protected the trust it had established with its community.
Solution
Cerebral Palsy Australia engaged Arinco to bring together human-centred design, AI engineering and technical expertise to make trusted information easier to access through My CP Guide.
Designing around the needs of the community
Arinco began by working closely with Cerebral Palsy Australia and people with lived experience to understand how they searched for information, what they needed from an AI assistant and what made its responses trustworthy.
Four workshops informed the assistant’s design, involving adults living with cerebral palsy, parents and primary carers of children with cerebral palsy, and the Cerebral Palsy Australia team. A fifth workshop explored broader opportunities for the future of My CP Guide, with 25 participants contributing across the five sessions. Participants could contribute through speech, communication aids, chat, assisted note-taking or written follow-up, allowing people with different communication needs to take part.
The findings helped shape how the assistant worked, including how it presented answers, linked to sources and supported different accessibility needs. These included presenting information in clear language, making source material easy to review, acknowledging uncertainty and helping users find further support when needed.
The team also considered how people’s information needs change throughout their lives, particularly for adults with cerebral palsy whose information needs may differ significantly from those of parents and carers.
Bringing AI-powered search to My CP Guide
Arinco designed and delivered an AI assistant integrated directly into My CP Guide, which went live in early October 2026.
The assistant allows visitors to ask questions in natural language and receive responses based on content approved and published by Cerebral Palsy Australia. Rather than relying solely on keywords or navigating multiple resources, people can ask questions relevant to their circumstances and explore topics conversationally.
Each response includes links to the original sources, allowing users to check the information and read further. Cerebral Palsy Australia remains in control of what information the assistant can use, with automated processes keeping approved content up to date.
Safety was also a priority. The assistant only draws on approved My CP Guide content and includes safeguards for sensitive questions, checks to identify potentially unsafe requests and privacy controls. It helps people find and understand information, with clear limits around providing diagnoses, recommending treatments or replacing professional advice.
Built on Microsoft Azure, the assistant uses Microsoft Foundry and Azure AI Search to find relevant information and generate answers. Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Static Web Apps and Azure Functions support the application, along with tools to collect feedback, manage usage and monitor performance.
The solution also limits how much conversation data is stored and includes ongoing testing to maintain response quality as the assistant evolves.
Testing and refining the experience
People with lived experience were involved throughout development, including user acceptance testing with participants from the original workshops and new testers. Participants asked questions relevant to their circumstances, explored different topics and reviewed the sources behind the assistant’s responses. Feedback was positive overall, while also highlighting areas to improve, including how the assistant handled different life stages, the length and consistency of answers, source information and mobile navigation.
For example, some questions about adults returned child-focused information, while similar questions sometimes produced different answers. Arinco and Cerebral Palsy Australia reviewed the findings together, addressing issues before launch and identifying others for future improvements.
Arinco also added key findings to automated tests to help catch problems when the assistant is updated, including issues that had already been fixed.
The assistant went through technical evaluation, user acceptance testing and approval checks before its release. Throughout delivery, regular meetings and stakeholder feedback helped keep design and development aligned with Cerebral Palsy Australia’s priorities.
Planning for future improvements
Arinco also helped Cerebral Palsy Australia consider how My CP Guide could develop beyond the AI assistant.
Drawing on the workshops, the team developed a Now-Next-Later roadmap containing 12 prioritised concepts across 11 opportunity areas, including content improvements, accessibility, personalisation and provider discovery. Each opportunity was assessed against its value to users, delivery effort, available data and potential risks. Where priorities differed, Arinco gave greater weight to the needs of people with lived experience. The roadmap also considered what data, privacy and security measures would need to be in place before each idea could progress.
Another opportunity was helping people find healthcare professionals and other support services with relevant cerebral palsy experience. A provider might describe itself as ‘accessible’, but that alone doesn’t tell someone whether staff understand cerebral palsy, whether they can physically access the premises or whether their communication needs will be supported. To explore this, Arinco developed a five-page, clickable service-finder prototype using example provider information. The design clearly separates checked and unchecked details and shows when each listing was last reviewed, helping people judge how much they can rely on the information.
The roadmap and prototype were completed in five days of effort, including building the clickable prototype in one day. AI tools helped speed up the work, while Arinco’s team reviewed the findings and prioritised the opportunities.
Outcomes
The engagement has given Cerebral Palsy Australia a new way to help people access trusted information through My CP Guide, with the AI assistant now live and opportunities identified for further improvement.
- Easier access to trusted information: Visitors can ask questions in natural language and receive answers based on approved My CP Guide content, with links to original sources for further reading.
- An experience shaped by the community: Research workshops and user testing helped ensure the assistant reflected the needs of adults living with cerebral palsy, parents and carers. Positive feedback supported its release, with further improvements identified.
- Trust and editorial control maintained: The assistant uses approved content, with safeguards for sensitive questions, privacy controls and automated testing to help maintain response quality.
- Ongoing monitoring and improvement: Feedback capture, operational monitoring and regression testing give Cerebral Palsy Australia ways to assess the assistant’s performance and make improvements over time.
- Clearer priorities for future development: The additional roadmap provides 12 prioritised concepts to help Cerebral Palsy Australia decide where to invest next, supported by a clickable service-finder prototype.
What's next?
With the AI assistant live, Cerebral Palsy Australia plans to continue refining the experience using real-world feedback and usage data, including improvements to adult-focused content, accessibility and response quality.
The broader roadmap also identifies opportunities to extend My CP Guide’s capabilities, including a potential service finder to help people connect with professionals and support services experienced in cerebral palsy. Further user testing, provider data and partnership considerations will help determine how that concept progresses.
