The Role of AI in Enhancing Digital Accessibility

Early this year, the FTC fined AccessiBe $1 million for falsely claiming its AI overlay could make any website fully accessible. 

The message was clear: Don’t treat digital accessibility like a checkbox. Treat it as a commitment. Or the consequences will be costly.

For enterprise teams under pressure to scale quickly, the temptation to automate everything is real. AI-driven tools promise speed and scale, but without human oversight, they can miss critical usability issues that expose organizations to legal and reputational risk.

So, where does AI truly enhance accessibility, and where does it fall short without human insight?

How AI Supports Accessibility at Scale

AI-driven platforms like User1st’s Accessibility Checker can scan thousands of pages in minutes and flag technical issues that could otherwise take weeks to surface manually.

This makes AI not only a testing shortcut but a way to scale accessibility without draining internal resources or delaying product timelines.

AI can help:

• Detect missing alt text on images - a common WCAG violation that can trigger lawsuits and damage SEO

• Flag poor color contrast based on WCAG guidelines - helping you avoid design decisions that alienate users with low vision

• Identify bad heading structure and semantic markup - improving screen reader navigation and ensuring legal compliance

• Surface unlabeled buttons and form fields - eliminating barriers for keyboard and screen reader  users

• Spot keyboard traps and focus order issues - these often go unnoticed but can severely impact accessibility and user trust

Automated scans also support long-term monitoring. As content changes, AI can alert teams to new regressions, making it easier to maintain compliance, not just achieve it once.

Combining AI and Human Insight

AI can speed up and scale your accessibility efforts, but it can’t replace the human element. The most effective accessibility strategies combine automation with real-world testing and expert judgment to cover both usability and compliance.

Here's how to get the balance right:

1. Use automated scans to detect common technical issues quickly and monitor regressions at scale

2. Prioritize fixes based on how they affect actual users, not on severity scores from automated tools

3. Conduct manual testing on critical user journeys like checkout, login, and form completion (this is where real usability issues often hide)

4. Test with assistive technologies (screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, and zoom/magnification tools) to identify barriers AI can't simulate

5. Include users with disabilities in your QA process as their feedback validates compliance, usability, and trust

AI can help you cover more ground, faster. But without a human layer, there’s no way to know if your digital experience works for the people it’s meant to serve in the first place.

Think your site passes the real-world accessibility test?

See how User1st’s accessibility tools help you build digital experiences that are truly for everyone.