AI for Accessibility Remediation
AI as a Remediation Assistant
The Digital Accessibility Office encourages the responsible use of AI to reduce barriers, expand participation, and align with CMU’s Digital Accessibility Policy and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). With human oversight, AI can be useful for learning about accessibility standards and best practices, remediating content, and developing alternative formats to expand access.
Because we can ask questions about the intended audience and how they will interact with our content, accessibility is always easier to incorporate during the creation phase. Still, in cases of existing content, AI can help speed up the remediation process or create additional formats that may improve usability.
Carnegie Mellon University provides access to protected tools like Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, ChatGPT Edu, and Siteimprove AI, which are useful for accessibility remediation. Contact the Digital Accessibility Office at digital-access@cmu.edu with questions about remediation or accessing tools.
Common Accessibility Errors
WebAIM produces a 1 Million report each year that is packed with valuable data about the state of accessibility on the web. According to their 2025 report:
- There are 5.4% more images used on homepages in 2025 than in 2024–our websites are becoming more graphic-heavy. However, 18.5% of all homepage images lacked alternative text.
- 94.8% of homepages had detected WCAG 2 failures. The most common issues were low-contrast text, missing form input labels, empty links, and empty buttons.
Remediation Areas
Alt Text and Image Descriptions
AI tools can now draft alt text or image descriptions. However, because results vary, and alt text should be contextual, it is necessary to review and edit outputs to ensure accuracy and relevance. Here are three examples of images of an apple. The three images are very different from one another and require varying descriptions. All of these text equivalents could be appropriate, depending on the use case and level of detail needed. Getting suggestions from AI and then combining or altering the descriptions to fit your context is recommended.
Example 1
- ChatGPT: A single red apple with a short stem standing upright on a smooth white surface against a plain white background.
- Microsoft Office: A red apple with water drops on it
- Gemini: A single, vibrant red apple with a short stem, slightly damp with water droplets, centered against a clean white background.
Example 2
- ChatGPT: A black apple-shaped logo with a bite taken out of one side, centered on a smooth silver-gray background.
- Microsoft Office: A black apple logo on a white surface.
- Gemini: A close-up of the iconic Apple logo, a bitten apple silhouette, centered on a brushed metal or gray surface, likely the lid of a MacBook or other Apple device.
Example 3
- ChatGPT: A surreal image of a green apple with its middle section sliced away to reveal bright yellow liquid inside, resembling juice. A snail is climbing on the top right side of the apple against a dark green background.
- Microsoft Office: A snail on a green apple.
- Gemini: A surreal composite image of a large green apple that appears partially filled with bright yellow-green liquid, as if the bottom half is a clear glass container. A small snail with a spiral shell is perched on the upper-right edge of the apple, looking toward the viewer. The background is a dark, moody green.
HTML Remediation (Forms, Links, and Buttons)
- Siteimprove AI can generate suggested HTML fixes for flagged accessibility issues, such as missing ARIA roles or incorrectly built form fields.
- ChatGPT Edu and other tools can produce accessible code snippets, but human knowledge is likely necessary to integrate the code into existing systems. As a learning tool, try querying ChatGPT Edu about WCAG-compliant code and the elements that make the HTML accessible. It has a surprisingly deep understanding of best practices and standards.
- Review and manually test suggestions to ensure compliance before implementing changes.
Transcript and Caption Support
- Zoom AI Companion offers live transcriptions and automated captioning for meetings and webinars held on Zoom. Individual users can adjust their captioning settings to allow for a comfortable font size.
Simplifying Text
- Summarizing and outlining dense materials increases comprehension.
- NotebookLM and ChatGPT Edu can simplify language and generate clear study materials.
Remediating Documents
- Microsoft Office includes a built-in accessibility checker that can help make Word and PowerPoint files more accessible. This accessibility checker can suggest more readable text color combinations and slide layouts.
- Grackle Workspace is an extension for Google Workspace that can help to remediate Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets and export more accessible PDFs. You already have access to this extension with your Andrew userID.
Limitations in Automated Remediation
- PDF Remediation: Autotagging and automated PDF remediation still struggle with applying tags retroactively. While AI tools can expedite remediation by adding tags, many PDFs still require manual editing for elements such as reading order, alt text, and other aspects.
- Accessibility Overlays: Automated systems known as accessibility overlays claim to resolve website issues by running as a plugin on top of existing code. They are notoriously unhelpful as they do not produce standards-compliant code, and often conflict with existing website technology. These tools often make websites harder to use with assistive technology. It is recommended to focus resources on building content correctly from the code and content creation levels, rather than relying on overlay solutions.
Alternative Formats
One way to ensure content is accessible to everyone is to produce it in multiple formats. For example, a lecture video should also include captions, an accompanying transcript, and a download of the slides shown in the video. In the next article, we will discuss tools available at CMU for generating accessible content and creating additional formats.