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World Congress 2026 Europe • Jul 9, 2026 • Session details

Fast, Confident, and Wrong: When AI Fails at Accessibility

Radostina (Ina) Tsvetkova

Trained on an inaccessible web, AI assistants confidently write code that passes automated tests but locks out real users. Discover why true accessibility requires human expertise.

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#1 about 2 min

Defining digital accessibility, WCAG, and ARIA standards

Core standards explain how to build inclusive digital products for users with disabilities.

#2 about 2 min

The danger of trusting AI-generated accessibility fixes

AI assistants can provide confident but harmful solutions that pass error checks while trapping keyboard users.

#3 about 2 min

Hallucinated success criteria and inaccessible training data

Large language models invent fake compliance guidelines and are trained on a web where most homepages fail basic accessibility checks.

#4 about 3 min

Common AI accessibility failures escaping automated tests

Automated tools miss critical interaction flaws like non-interactive elements with click handlers, missing labels, and unmanaged focus states.

#5 about 2 min

Verification debt and AI as an expertise multiplier

Blindly reusing unverified AI components creates organizational debt that requires foundational accessibility knowledge to fix.

#6 about 2 min

The human cost of accessibility exclusion

Implementing broken, AI-generated accessibility code excludes real users and violates civil rights, making manual verification mandatory.

Matching moments

4:06 min

Prioritizing web accessibility standards over artificial intelligence hype

Chris Heilmann +3 · LIVE

3:37 min

Live review of generic automated accessibility code improvements

Ramona Domen · LIVE

4:58 min

Enhancing digital accessibility using artificial intelligence tools

Chris Heilmann +2 · LIVE

4:28 min

Exploring artificial intelligence as a solution for web accessibility

Chris Heilmann +2 · LIVE

2:05 min

The impact and risks of AI generated code

Chris Heilmann · LIVE

2:56 min

Verifying accessibility compliance utilizing automated auditing and user testing

Ire Aderinokun · WWC 2022

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