The web was designed to be accessible. Twenty-five years after the first WCAG guidelines, over 95% of websites still fail basic accessibility checks. Here's where things stand, what's driving change, and where the industry is heading.

The numbers

How many sites fail?

The WebAIM Million report analyses the top one million home pages annually. In 2024:

95.9% of home pages had detectable WCAG failures
The average page had 56.8 errors
83.6% of pages had low-contrast text
58.2% of images were missing alt text
18.6% of form inputs lacked labels

These are only the issues automated tools can detect. Manual testing catches additional problems with keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, and cognitive accessibility that automation misses.

Who's affected?

1.3 billion people worldwide live with some form of disability (WHO)
2.2 billion have a vision impairment
466 million have disabling hearing loss
Situational disabilities (broken arm, bright sunlight, loud environment) affect everyone at some point

Accessibility isn't about edge cases. It's about a population larger than the entire European Union.

The regulatory landscape in 2025

European Accessibility Act (EAA)

The EAA took effect on 28 June 2025, making it the most significant accessibility regulation since the ADA. It requires:

All digital products and services sold in the EU to meet accessibility requirements
Applies to: e-commerce, banking, transport, telecom, and media services
Maps to EN 301 549, which references WCAG 2.1 Level AA
Penalties vary by member state but include fines and market access restrictions

This affects any company selling digital products or services to EU customers — not just EU-based companies.

ADA (United States)

The ADA doesn't reference a specific WCAG version, but:

The Department of Justice published a final rule in April 2024 requiring state and local government websites to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA
Federal courts consistently hold that commercial websites must be accessible under Title III
ADA-related web accessibility lawsuits exceeded 4,000 in 2023

Section 508 (US Federal)

Applies to all federal agencies and contractors. Currently references WCAG 2.0, but a refresh aligning with 2.1 or 2.2 is expected.

AODA (Ontario, Canada)

Requires WCAG 2.0 Level AA for organisations with 50+ employees. Enforcement has increased, and alignment with newer WCAG versions is under discussion.

Trends shaping 2025-2026

1. AI-powered remediation

AI is changing how accessibility issues get fixed. Instead of just flagging "image missing alt text," tools now generate specific alt text, ARIA labels, and code fixes. This reduces the gap between identifying issues and resolving them from hours to seconds.

2. Shift-left testing

Accessibility testing is moving earlier in the development cycle:

Design phase: Figma plugins checking colour contrast and touch target sizes
Development phase: IDE extensions (VS Code) flagging issues as code is written
CI/CD phase: Automated scans blocking deployments that introduce regressions
Production phase: Continuous monitoring catching issues that slip through

The earlier you catch an issue, the cheaper it is to fix. An accessibility bug caught in design costs a fraction of one discovered by a user in production.

3. AI search and accessibility overlap

A new trend is emerging: the overlap between accessibility and AI discoverability. Many of the same practices that make content accessible to assistive technologies also make it extractable by AI search engines:

Semantic HTML and heading hierarchy
Alt text and text alternatives
Structured data (JSON-LD)
Clear, concise content

Sites that invest in accessibility are often better positioned for AI search citations — an unexpected SEO benefit.

4. Litigation continues to rise

Web accessibility lawsuits in the US show no signs of slowing:

2021: ~2,895 federal lawsuits
2022: ~3,255 federal lawsuits
2023: ~4,000+ federal lawsuits
2024: Trend continuing upward

Industries most targeted: e-commerce, food service, banking, healthcare, and education.

5. Overlay tools losing credibility

Accessibility overlay widgets (one-line JavaScript solutions that claim to make sites compliant) faced significant backlash:

The Overlay Fact Sheet, signed by hundreds of accessibility professionals, documents why overlays don't work
Multiple lawsuits have been filed against companies using overlays
The National Federation of the Blind has publicly opposed overlay solutions
No overlay can substitute for building accessibility into the source code

What the data tells us

The gap between regulation and compliance is still enormous. 95% of sites fail while new laws require compliance. This creates both risk and opportunity:

Risk: Companies that ignore accessibility face increasing legal, financial, and reputational exposure.

Opportunity: Accessibility is still a differentiator. A company that meets WCAG 2.2 AA stands out from 95% of its competitors. It reaches a larger audience, avoids legal risk, and — increasingly — performs better in AI search results.

What to do about it

If you haven't started, the priority order is:

Run an automated scan to understand your baseline. Tools like Blyxo, axe, or Lighthouse give you a starting point in minutes.
Fix the high-impact issues first: missing alt text, low-contrast text, unlabelled form inputs, missing page titles. These four categories account for the majority of automated failures.
Add accessibility to your CI/CD pipeline so new issues don't ship.
Plan for manual testing — keyboard navigation, screen reader testing, and cognitive accessibility checks that automation can't cover.
Train your team. Accessibility is a skill, not a one-time audit. Invest in building institutional knowledge.

The web was built to be accessible. The good news is that getting back to that default is more achievable than ever.

What accessibility metrics does your organisation track? We're interested in hearing how teams measure progress beyond just "number of WCAG violations."