Trends in AI and digital accessibility
When talking about AI and digital accessibility with an a11y expert, you know it will be an exciting and optimistic conversation. In the midst of all the buzz and bluster of the AI revolution, accessibility is one of the most compelling and human-centered use cases for GenAI and LLMs.
As Jenia Walker, iSoftStone’s director of global accessibility delivery, notes, “AI innovation is helping incorporate accessibility into every aspect of digital experience, and much faster than before.”
This is driven as much by “how” AI is contributing to accessibility as by “what” it’s doing. A new wave of AI tools and solutions is setting up developers (including those without accessibility experience) for success, empowering them to deliver inclusive experiences — sometimes even before a single line of code has been written.
Consider accessibility copilots in GitHub, open-source AI Linters that identify WCAG2 accessibility issues in source code and suggest instant fixes, or the AI plug-ins in Figma that help designers create visually accessible experiences. And then there are the front-end solutions like the AEM toolkit iSoftStone built for our Fortune 100 client, and the swathe of AI projects funded by Microsoft’s Accessibility Innovation program.
It’s only the start of what’s possible.
The CSUN Assistive Technology Conference 2025 was a hotbed of thought leadership around AI and accessibility. Here, Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Microsoft’s chief accessibility officer, demonstrates an AI solution for video description during her talk, “Accessibility in the AI Ecosystem.”
Jenny Lay-Flurrie of Microsoft and Mike Buckley, CEO of Be My Eyes, talk to CSUN 25 about how their companies are collaborating to train inclusive AI models.
We seem to be approaching an era of abundance for digital accessibility. With every new tool, every new solution, and every new pathway, AI is making accessibility by design frictionless, effortless even.
Automated solutions and built-in accessibility may mean more care for the individual user. More excitement about the experiences we can deliver. More for everyone, because of AI.
Does AI drive more empathy too?
Consider all this “moreness” from a human-led perspective and you’ll find another interesting takeaway: AI is carving out the time and space to center the needs of users with disabilities by simply including them from the get-go.
Whether through ease of use or just by being an available option, these AI-powered accessibility solutions inculcate a degree of empathy for users into digital development and deliver results that enrich lives. Actively and passively, AI is recruiting more accessibility allies (and a11ys).
That can only be a good thing.
As a company that highly values the power of empathy in our accessibility engagements and beyond, iSoftStone is excited to see this change unfold. Of course, we know better than to be naively idealistic. All AI models and LLMs have inherent biases that must be accounted for and corrected. When it comes to accessibility, those biases could well make or break a solution. If you hope to build a solution with an empathetic perspective, you need to make sure you’re including empathy from the start. Accurate scoping, quality assurance guardrails, and fine-tuning are vital.
Several of iSoftStone’s accessibility experts have disabilities or use Assistive Technology themselves. We know firsthand the importance of having developers on a project who can understand and reflect users’ needs. That’s why we emphasize close collaboration between our AI enablement experts and our accessibility experts when we’re creating any AI-powered digital accessibility solutions.
How do we make that collaboration work in practice? Let’s take a look.
We are always looking for new ways to take accessibility solutions to the next level and to make them more efficient and budget-friendly for our clients.
Jenia Walker
Director, Global Accessibility Delivery | iSoftStone
AI innovation & certified accessibility expertise
At iSoftStone, we ensure quality, empathy, and value through cross-functional teaming practices. Our AI enablement and accessibility teams work together in a dynamic hub to develop new digital accessibility solutions using AI, machine learning, and automation. They dream big, trade ideas, identify gaps in the market, and co-create cutting-edge solutions.
It’s an approach that is already delivering success for iSoftStone’s enterprise clients. See, for example, the story of our AI-powered ARIA label and Alt Text Generator and how we built it out into a custom AEM toolkit that allowed our client to create accessible experiences in minutes, instead of weeks.
Just as importantly, we’re well-placed to develop ready-made AI for accessibility offerings that can serve clients of all sizes, industries, and sectors.
Walker excitedly talks about one project the teams have in development: a solution that creates AI-generated audio descriptions (AD) for video content. Traditionally, AD is a costly and time-consuming process, viable only for bigger companies who can afford to invest in custom narration. An AI solution that makes AD fast, affordable, and widely available could be used in the public sector or by nonprofits or smaller companies. The end result should be more online video content accessible to the millions worldwide who have visual disabilities. (There’s that sense of “moreness” again.)
Everyone deserves great AI accessibility tools
We believe that every organization, no matter its budget, deserves great accessibility tools and experiences that include every user. Whether your organization is enterprise-level, a mid-size business, in the public sector, or a non-profit, iSoftStone’s teams can create efficient solutions that serve you and your users.
AI means a whole new world for digital accessibility solutions. Organizational conversations about accessibility are rapidly moving toward their rightful place at the heart of user experience. Let’s go grab you a slice of that action.
