AI-First Accessibility: Turn Legal Pressure into a Competitive Edge

You might be thinking that accessibility is a noble gesture for blind users and has no place in marketing KPIs.

Yet right now, since 28 June 2025, Act No. 424/2023 Coll. (implementation of the European Accessibility Act) applies in the Czech Republic, extending obligations to commercial digital products and services. Davis Wright Tremaine
But the law is only a trigger. The real reason why it pays to embrace accessibility now is called artificial intelligence.

Audio version of the article

Recording length: 16 minutes

Why “AI-first” accessibility isn’t a buzzword but a survival strategy

• AI is changing the way we search and buy. Gartner warns that by 2026 traditional search volume will drop by 25 % because people ask chat-bots instead of Google. technewsworld.com
• AI agents make decisions for us. By 2027 they will automate or co-decide on half of all business decisions, according to Gartner. Technology Magazine
• A website that makes no sense to machines simply disappears from the conversation. If your code lacks semantics and descriptions, AI skips it and so do your customers.

Simple? Not even close. But it means that when a voice assistant recommends a store for running shoes, you’ll appear on the shortlist instead of the blacklist.

How AI “reads” the web and why it loves accessibility

Accessibility and AI thus share the same “language”: semantics, structure, and context.

Watch out this is the most common mistake: Deploy a modern UI framework and forget roles and aria-labels. Annoying for humans, invisible to AI.

Studies on the impact of improving accessibility

A few numbers to help you sell it to the bosses 🙂 when you translate to “corp speak”, you’re not doing it just for humans or robots but to grow your profit :D.

Seven AI boosters rooted in WCAG

1. Alt text – superfood for LLMs

Google officially recommends adding descriptive alt text so the search engine (and thus generative AI) understands what’s in the image.

In practice:

For a wallpaper client it was enough to add contextual alt texts to images, and traffic from Google Image Search went up. Today you don’t have to write them by hand; AI-generated captions are often plenty.

Example:

<!-- wallpaper with peonies -->
<img src="wallpaper-peonies.jpg"
alt="Vintage-style wallpaper featuring pink peonies on an ivory background"
loading="lazy" width="800" height="600">

Tips:

• Always start with the key motif (“wallpaper with peonies”), then colors, style, purpose.
• Keep alt ≤ 125 characters – most screen readers truncate longer text.
• Google guide for images

2. Semantic HTML – GPS for agents

Headings (<h1>–<h6>), landmarks (<nav>, <main>, <footer>), article, section.
For screen readers it’s a clear path; for AI it’s a detailed content map that speeds crawling and improves relevance.

Example:

<header>
<h1>Interior inspiration</h1>
<nav aria-label="Main menu">
<ul><li><a href="/wallpapers/">Wallpapers</a></li> … </ul>
</nav>
</header>

<main>
<article>
<h2 id="flowers">Floral motifs</h2>
<section aria-labelledby="flowers">
<!-- content -->
</section>
</article>
</main>

<footer>© 2025 Wallpapers.cz</footer>

Source:

• HTML: A good basis for accessibility

3. ARIA roles & states – metadata 2.0

role="button", aria-expanded, aria-live.
Without them AI doesn’t know that a filter toggle just revealed 42 additional products. With them an agent can simulate a click, read the state, and recommend the right variant.

Example:

<button class="filter-toggle"
aria-expanded="false"
aria-controls="filter-panel">
Filters
</button>

<div id="filter-panel" hidden>
<!-- 42 products -->
</div>

<script>
const btn = document.querySelector('.filter-toggle');
btn.addEventListener('click', () => {
  const expanded = btn.getAttribute('aria-expanded') === 'true';
  btn.setAttribute('aria-expanded', !expanded);
  document.getElementById('filter-panel').hidden = expanded;
});
</script>

Source:

• W3C – Using aria-expanded for expandable regions

4. Consistent navigation – network of relations

A logical link structure raises page authority and lets AI build an accurate knowledge graph of your brand.

5. Video & audio transcripts – text is king

Captions aren’t just for the deaf. They’re a tunnel for LLMs to “see” inside video, quote it, and answer the user with a single prompt.

Pro tip: For audio, drop the file into Google NotebookLM to auto-transcribe (up to 200 MB ≈ 10 h of audio) and embed the text in a collapsible panel. It helps people *and* boosts SEO & bots.

Example:

<video controls poster="preview.jpg">
  <source src="interview.mp4" type="video/mp4">
  <track kind="subtitles" src="interview.en.vtt" srclang="en" label="English" default>
</video>

<details>
  <summary>Interview transcript</summary>
  <p>[00:00] …</p>
</details>

6. Valid, fast code – Core Web Vitals vitamins

Clean HTML/CSS means fewer parser errors, faster loading, therefore better crawling and ranking priority.

7. Meaningful form labels – future-proof conversions

<label for="email">Email</label> may not sound sexy, but AI needs it to auto-fill the cart for the user. Once shopping agents are the norm, a poorly labelled field = a lost sale.

Practical analytics tip: Correctly labelled fields are easy to track, and UX tools can detect personal data and avoid sending it to their servers.

Example:

<form class="checkout">
  <label for="email">Email</label>
  <input type="email" id="email" name="email" autocomplete="email" required>

  <label for="phone">Phone</label>
  <input type="tel" id="phone" name="phone" autocomplete="tel" pattern="\+?\d{9,15}" required>

  <button type="submit">Order Now</button>
</form>

Sources:

• <label>: The Label element

ROI your CFO will love (numbers, not feelings)

• Visibility + SEO
  Accessible, structured pages have a much higher chance of landing a featured snippet or “zero-click” answer. Google for Developers
• Readiness for voice & chat commerce
  Experts estimate that by 2028, 30 % of large corporations will serve customers through a single AI channel. CX Today
• Lower future costs
  Refactoring invalid code under AI-integration pressure costs more than incorporating WCAG continuously.
• Larger market
  1.3 million people with disabilities in the Czech Republic + AI chat-bots = an audience you don’t want to lock out.

5 steps to start this month

1. Lightning AI audit
   Run Lighthouse → Accessibility and try “reading” the page with ChatGPT Browse. Where it struggles, semantics are missing.
2. Quick wins
   • Add alt text to the top 100 images, focusing on primary product/service shots.
   • Fix the <h1-h3> hierarchy on the homepage.
3. Style guide
   Document contrasts, keyboard navigation, and ARIA role naming in your internal design system.
4. Upskill the team
   Run a joint workshop for UX, copy, dev, and SEO: AI needs consistent semantics across the domain.
5. CI/CD guardrails
   Add automated aXe tests + HTML validator to the pipeline; no green, no merge.

Start now, your future self (and your AI agents) will thank you.

FAQ – straight answers

“Do I have to meet the entire WCAG 2.2?”
No. Start with critical A/AA criteria that directly feed AI: alt text, keyboard access, headings, aria-labels.

“What if we run a headless SPA?”
Render key parts server-side or use prerendering so the crawler and agent get fully semantic HTML.

“AI can handle the mess anyway…”
Sure, but why should it? It will favor competitors who serve clean data.

Summary: Accessibility = AI fuel

• People get an inclusive experience.
• AI gets structured data so it can recommend you.
• You gain SEO, conversions, and legal peace of mind.

Final question: When a customer asks a chat-bot tomorrow “where can I buy running shoes with a wider toe box?”, will your e-shop appear in the answer?