Last reviewed: October 2026
Reviewed by: Priscilla Matthews, Project Consultant, Employment Resources, Inc.
PRIME brought together VR professionals for a training on job retention support for people with disabilities using AI. Dr. Tim Tansey, PRIME's principal investigator; David Douglas, CEO of Guideway Labs; and Diogo Guimaraes, Chief Technology Officer of Guideway Labs, walked through why PRIME exists and what our AI companion, Anchor, actually does and doesn't do.
Here's a look at what came out of that conversation.
The problem PRIME is trying to solve
Vocational rehabilitation has always invested heavily in getting people into jobs — resume building, interview prep, career exploration. What's gotten far less attention is what happens after someone is hired: how to help them keep the job. PRIME was built to close that gap. At its core are retention specialists who lead the work with clients, supported by a training curriculum on retention skills and by Anchor, an AI companion tool that helps specialists stay connected to clients between sessions.
The project's goals are concrete:
- Increase the number of individuals still employed six months after exiting VR services
- Keep wages stable or rising
- Track 12-month retention with the same employer
- Develop practices that VR agencies and community rehabilitation providers can realistically sustain and adopt themselves.
What Anchor is — and, just as importantly, what it isn't
Anchor is the name of PRIME's AI companion. Anchor is not a counselor, not a therapist, not a decision-maker, and not a case management system. It doesn't get shared with employers, and it isn't a surveillance tool.
What it does do is run brief, structured check-ins with clients — currently weekly, averaging under ten minutes — built around social cognitive theory concepts like motivation, workplace barriers, and career development. Every conversation and every AI-generated insight goes to the client's retention specialist, who decides what to act on. The team put it this way… Anchor shares signals that may need attention; retention specialists decide what happens next and take any needed action.
The team also emphasized a design choice worth noting: Anchor is deliberately not built to maximize engagement the way social platforms are. It's meant to be there when a client needs it and stay out of the way when they don't — leaving the relationship-building work to the retention specialist.
What's Ahead
A few things to watch for: voice-to-text functionality (which the team stressed is more complex to build responsibly than it might sound, given the confidentiality requirements), a peer support forum for clients, and continued work to meet recognized accessibility standards, so the tool works well for people using screen readers, keyboard navigation, and other assistive technology.
The team also fielded a question about which AI tools to recommend to clients or colleagues exploring AI on their own. Their advice wasn't a specific product — it was to pay attention to the company behind whatever tool you use, since that shapes the tool's behavior and values.
Get Involved
AI is influencing every aspect of life, including vocational rehabilitation services. Here are a few ways to get involved and help shape how AI supports job retention for your customers.
- Learn from the webinar: Job Retention Support for People with Disabilities Using AI
- Try it yourself: Explore the Anchor demo
- Get in touch: Reach out to the PRIME’s Project Team with questions and feedback
PRIME's team plans to return with an update on how Anchor has evolved with real-world use. In the meantime, we'll keep sharing what we're learning here.
More About Our Team
Dr. Tim Tansey is PRIME's principal investigator and a professor in the Rehabilitation Counselor Education program at UW–Madison. He has over 30 years of experience as a rehabilitation counselor, educator, and researcher, and has published extensively on evidence-based practices in vocational rehabilitation.
