How Does Accessibility Connect to AI Search?

"Is accessibility actually connected to AI search?"

It's a fair question. On the surface, building a website that works for people using screen readers and building one that shows up in ChatGPT or Google's AI Overviews feel like two completely different projects. But they're closer than most people realize.

So we sat down with both our design and development teams and asked them to walk us through it. What AI search is really looking for, what accessibility actually means, and why the two overlap far more than you'd expect. Here's what they had to say.

“When a user enters in a prompt, AI search tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google's AI Overviews build answers by turning that one prompt into multiple sub-queries (for instance, Google's AI Mode runs 9 to 11 in parallel).

A webpage is graded against every angle of the prompt, not just one keyword. The webpage isn’t scanned as a whole. AI breaks content into sections, ranks each one independently, and pulls only the chunks that directly answer a sub-query. Analysis from Semrush finds that AI systems consistently reference content with specific, sourced statistics over vague generalizations. Above all, AI is looking for helpful and informative content."

-Development

“At its core, accessibility means your website works for every person who visits it, regardless of how they're accessing it or what limitations they might be navigating. That includes people using screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, voice control, or high-contrast displays. But it also includes people on slow connections, aging devices, or just having a rough day with cognitive load.

From a design standpoint, it's less about ticking checkboxes and more about building with structure and intention. It means using real heading hierarchy, not just making text bigger and bold. It means writing link text that makes sense out of context. It means giving images alt text that actually describes what they're showing, not just "image1.jpg." It means your color contrast holds up, your interactive elements communicate their state, and your content has a logical reading order."

-Design

“A lot more than most people realize. AI search tools essentially operate as non-visual users. Similarly to someone using a screen reader, they can't “see” your design. They read the underlying website code, which means the same signals that make your site accessible also make it AI-readable.

Semantic HTML tags (like <main>, <article>, <aside>) tell a machine what type of content it’s reading. A clean heading hierarchy (H1 through H6) labels each chunk of content, so AI can match the right section to the right sub-query. Alt text on images helps AI interpret them.

Overall, the accessibility tree is the structural roadmap a screen reader uses to navigate a page, and ultimately helps AI find the answer to a query. If you’re building an accessible website, you’re building for AI."

-Design + Development

“In most cases, you don't need to completely start over. Most of what AI search rewards is content and structure, not framework or design. The biggest gains come from refreshing what you already have. Updating existing content is a good first step. Ahrefs' analysis of 17 million AI citations found that AI-cited pages are, on average, 25.7% more recent than traditional search results, meaning the engines actively reward recency.

Most sites already have a library of older posts and pages that just need another pass. Aim for clearer headings, sourced stats, plain-language summaries, and a fresh "last updated" date.

From the development side, semantic HTML cleanup and alt text upgrades can be done page-by-page. A full rebuild only makes sense when the technical foundation gets in the way. If you have code that hides content, an inaccessible front end, or a CMS that won't let you control headings or metadata, you may consider a rebuild."

-Development

“It looks intentional. The content is structured the way a thoughtful writer would structure an argument: one clear h1, supporting sections with descriptive h2s, detail that lives under the right heading. The copy doesn't rely on visual design to carry meaning, a sentence or paragraph makes sense on its own, without needing to see what it's next to."

-Development 

"Images have alt text that actually earns its place, not a caption that restates the image, but a description that adds meaning. Navigation labels are specific. Service pages don't just say "what we do" in a headline — they name the thing. FAQs are written in real question form.

Page titles and meta descriptions are written for humans but include the language those humans would actually use to search.”

-Design

“Start off by running an SEO and accessibility audits. The results will give you a clear idea of what's working and what isn't, and where the easy wins are hiding. You'll usually find issues like outdated content, missing alt text, problems with headings, pages blocked from AI crawlers, code hiding important content, and a lot of it is fixable a page at a time.”

-Development

“Audit your heading structure on your most important pages. It's free, it takes less than ten minutes, and it tells you almost everything about whether your content is structured or just styled.

Add meaningful alt text to your images. Go to your most visited page and look at every image on it. Right-click any image, choose "Inspect," and look for the alt attribute inside the <img> tag. What you find there...or don't find tells you a lot."

-Design