AI and accessibility: helping, not excluding

Niamh runs an online course membership for bookkeepers returning to work. She added AI-generated captions to her video lessons, AI summaries at the end of each module and a chat assistant for questions. A member who is deaf thanked her for the captions, then pointed out that half the software terms in them were wrong. Another member, who uses a screen reader, could not get the chat assistant to work at all, and there was no other way to ask a question.

AI can make a membership far more accessible, faster and more cheaply than was ever possible before. It can also create new barriers, or produce accessibility features that look complete but fail the people who rely on them. The difference comes down to how you check, where you keep people involved and whether members always have another way in.

Where AI genuinely helps

Used with care, AI takes on accessibility work that many small memberships simply never got around to:

• Captions and transcripts for videos and recorded calls; see captions and subtitles for member videos with AI and transcribing recordings with AI.
• First drafts of image descriptions, so pictures and diagrams are not invisible to screen reader users.
• Plain-language summaries of long or technical lessons for members who find dense text hard going.
• Audio versions of written material for members who prefer to listen.
• Quick restructuring of content with clearer headings and shorter paragraphs, which helps almost everyone.

Each of these was once slow or expensive. Now the bottleneck is review, not production.

Accessible is not the same as generated

The trap is assuming that because AI produced captions or descriptions, the job is done. Members who depend on these features are the least able to spot the errors. A hearing member can tell when a caption says “accrual” wrongly as “a cruel”; a deaf member simply learns the wrong word.

Build a review step into every accessibility workflow. Someone who knows the subject should read captions and transcripts for technical terms and names, check that image descriptions say what the image is actually there to teach, and confirm that plain-language summaries have not dropped or changed the meaning. Where you can, ask members who use these features to tell you what works.

Make sure AI features do not shut people out

Every AI feature you add to your membership, whether a chat assistant, an interactive quiz or an AI study helper, is also a new interface that members must be able to use. Before launching one, test it the way different members will:

• Can it be used with a keyboard alone, without a mouse?
• Does it work with a screen reader, and are its responses announced?
• Is the text readable at larger sizes, with enough contrast?
• Can members take their time, or does it time out?
• Does it work on a phone as well as a computer?

Most important of all, never make an AI feature the only route to something. Every assistant should have a clear way to reach a person, as described in designing the handoff from AI to a human. A member who cannot use your chatbot should never be left without help.

Remember that AI is assistive technology too

For some members, AI tools are how they take part at all. A member with dyslexia may use an assistant to check their forum posts. Someone with limited hand movement may dictate and let AI tidy the result. A member with a chronic illness may rely on summaries on difficult days. If you set rules about AI use in your community or courses, make sure they do not accidentally penalize these members, and be careful with tools that claim to detect AI writing, since they can misfire on people who write in unusual ways.

A review prompt for accessibility

An assistant can help you spot accessibility problems in your own content. It will not replace testing with real people, but it catches common issues quickly:

Review this lesson from [course name] for accessibility. Our learners include people who use screen readers, people with dyslexia and people reading in a second language. Check for: images or diagrams mentioned without a description, instructions that rely on color or position alone, such as “click the green button on the right”, long unbroken paragraphs, unexplained jargon, and links or buttons with unclear labels. List each problem with a suggested fix. Do not rewrite the lesson. Lesson: [paste lesson text].

Then make the changes yourself and check the result. For non-AI foundations such as contrast, headings and link text, see accessibility basics every site owner should know.

Tell members what is available

Accessibility features only help if members know they exist. Add a short accessibility note to your help area listing what you offer, such as captions, transcripts, audio versions and summaries, how AI is involved in producing them, and how to request something different. Invite members to report errors, and fix them promptly when they do.

First steps

• List the accessibility features you offer now and the ones AI could help you add.
• Add a human review step for every AI-produced caption, transcript and description.
• Test each AI feature with a keyboard, a screen reader and a phone.
• Give every assistant a clear route to a person.
• Check that your AI rules do not penalize members who use AI to take part.
• Publish a short accessibility note and ask members for feedback.