For years, making a website accessible meant starting at the homepage. However, with the rise of AI-powered search, users are now being dropped directly onto the page that answers their query, bypassing the homepage entirely. According to AudioEye’s 2026 Digital Accessibility Index, 95% of AI search traffic bypasses the homepage, and the pages users are landing on are not the ones most organizations have prioritized for accessibility.

Accessibility Issues

The 2026 Digital Accessibility Index scanned 166,457 pages across 6,161 domains and found that the pages beyond the homepage average 10% more accessibility issues and 18% more page elements than homepages. The most common issues include images that cannot be described by a screen reader, links that do not indicate where they go, and interactive elements that are too low-contrast to see.

Roughly one in five of these issues blocks users from completing a task entirely, with no workaround and no alternative path. For users relying on a screen reader or keyboard navigation, this is not an inconvenience, but a dead end.

Consequences of Inaccessibility

The litigation data tells a similar story, with U.S. web accessibility litigation more than doubling since 2020, reaching 26,253 total filings in 2025. The issues driving most of these cases, such as keyboard and navigation failures, screen reader incompatibility, and inaccessible links and buttons, are the same criteria the Digital Accessibility Index found failing on roughly three in four applicable pages.

Many organizations have turned to accessibility widgets as a quick fix, but these widgets rely on automation alone and cannot catch every issue. Research shows that 38% of companies sued for accessibility violations already had a widget in place.

To ensure that websites are accessible to all users, organizations should address accessibility proactively, across their full site, and not just the pages they have already reviewed.

Original reporting: KTVZ (Central Oregon) — read the source article.