Intro title card and voiceover: Sarah Pulis and Jennison Asuncion discuss the responses to the Global Accessibility Pulse 2026.

Sarah Pulis: Hello, everyone. I’m Sarah Pulis, one of the founders of Intopia, and I’m here with Jennison Asuncion, co-founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, or GAAD for short, which is celebrating its 15th year. Jennison, you gave us a question to pose in the Global Accessibility Pulse Check for GAAD 2026. So for this year, is the internet more accessible than it was 10 years ago? Why did you choose this question, Jennison?

Jennison: Given where we are with the advances in AI and the speed at which everyone is talking about it and how it’s revolutionising the web today, I just thought it was a good opportunity to step back and do a pulse check and go — have we really come that far in the last decade, and more particularly in the last few years with all of these new ways of being able to publish and build to the web and to the digital world out there? So I thought it was just something — a good way to kind of do that pulse check and see where we were.

Sarah: And so we asked people from all around the world what their answer was to that question. So many people kindly took the time to actually think about the question and record responses, and of course that has formed part of the pulse check. And we’re going to be chatting about their responses and also the themes that we saw. So let’s get into it. We asked contributors from all around the world whether the internet is more accessible than it was 10 years ago. The answers weren’t a simple yes or no. Progress is real, but so too are the gaps, and in some areas things are actually getting more complicated. So Jennison, after reading and watching the responses, what stood out to you most?

Jennison: Because I work in the field, I found myself nodding in agreement to a lot of what was being said, because frankly I’m living it — both from the perspective of as a digital accessibility industry person, but also as an end user. So for those watching and listening who don’t know, I’m someone who’s completely blind. So I am directly impacted by the ebbs and flows of accessibility on different websites and web pages. So I listened and I was like, yep, I agree with that. Mostly. There were some points where I was listening and going — one of the challenges of course, when we ask this type of question is a lot of it is ‘it depends’. And we heard that from a lot of our respondents too. It depends on the circumstance, but it also depends on each individual’s or groups of individuals’ experiences — whether they’re using assistive technology or not, whether they’re comfortable using their assistive technology with the web, power users versus novice users. Is there actually an issue with the accessibility or usability of the site, or is it more that someone just may not know all the latest ways to make their assistive technology sing better? So that’s a long way of answering your question.

Sarah: No, but I think I totally agree. And I think as you say it – you know – I’m a practitioner – but whether you are a practitioner or someone with lived experience, these are the responses with things that I think we all grapple with every single day in whatever it is that we are doing.

Jennison, how long have you been, well, I guess technically in the industry is very hard for you to answer, but what would you say, you know, about your-

Jennison: I took my first full-time, a 100% full-time job in digital accessibility 20 years ago, back at the Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto. So that was my first full, full-time. I stressed the full full-time because even though in my previous careers I was called upon to informally check the accessibility of different things — but yeah, 20 years.

Sarah: Yep, So we’ve seen a lot. I can’t match the 20 years, but I’ve been in the industry 16 and probably on the periphery longer than that. And I think, you know, the thing is that because we have been in the industry for so long, these challenges are things that we are dealing with day to day. And that feeling of yes, there has been progress, but everything is just so much more complex — the ability to more rapidly build any sort of digital technology. And I know we were chatting before about — it’s not just the internet. It’s so much more today.

Jennison Asuncion: It’s the digital world around us, right? I mean, the web, you know, constitutes a huge portion of it, but then there’s everything else, there is the mobile apps, and all the stuff that’s being developed that we don’t even know about. Things, and it’s the other stuff we do, like the glasses and all the software that’s being written for those. There is game consoles and games, and kiosks everywhere, that were, more increasing I hear now at some hotels you can — they don’t have people at the front desk overnight. You actually have to check in on a kiosk.

And good heavens, if I decide to check into a hotel like that, as sometimes happens when it’s after midnight and I’m encountering a kiosk with buttons that are not discernible by touch — am I gonna be able to check into that hotel?

Sarah Pulis: Yeah, absolutely. And so listening to the responses — a lot of contributors said that awareness has grown, and that’s great, and that’s the mission of Global Accessibility Awareness Day of course

So that awareness has grown, we’ve got standards, we’ve got more tools to help us out. But the actual experience for people is still inconsistent. It’s still poor. So why do you think that progress and awareness hasn’t necessarily translated into those consistent outcomes for people?

Jennison Asuncion: That’s again one of these multi-pronged answers. One of the easiest answers I often give is because those customers and clients who are asking for digital properties to be built — still today, not enough of them are demanding as a core requirement that accessibility be in there. It comes down to a dollar and cents thing, right? Because there is a cost to design and development. We often hear that if we think about accessibility early on then the cost is minimal, but there is still a cost. And unless people like demand it as a core requirement and it’s written into contracts and things, that’s one part of the answer.

Another part of the answer is there are so many tools now that are out there that generate code, whether it’s for websites or mobile apps. They do that really quickly and they make it so easy for, we use the phrase moms and pops, you know like your average person who has no understanding of technology can now build a website in minutes. And so those frameworks — not enough of those are spitting out accessible code. And if I was someone who didn’t know anything about accessibility, I wouldn’t even know to ask, or know to even worry about that. I just want a mobile app or website out there for the world to use, to purchase things on right today. So there’s still hundreds and hundreds and thousands of those pages and apps being built like daily where people just don’t, just aren’t even thinking about it.

Sarah Pulis: And that’s where it’s so hard, it’s like I think you know we’d all agree that, well I shouldn’t say we’d all agree, but the respondents said to greater or lesser extent some things had improved but the challenges of like, if I think about even 10 years ago how it was like, you couldn’t spin up a website like you said, a mom and pop you know sort of business couldn’t easily spin up a website, they didn’t have that ability to do that. Whereas today and I know we’ll get to the AI discussion in a sec, but today it is so much easier to publish something online, whether it be a website or whether it be content. And so the scale and just the ease and rapidness of the ability to do this has completely changed.

And so although we might see improvement maybe in areas, in pockets, maybe in some of those organisations like core services that do understand how critical this is for their customers — at the same time, the proliferation and the ease of doing this is just also compounding the issue at the same time.

Jennison: Oh absolutely and you know, the two other things I’ll mention quickly are, and we might get to… we’ll probably get to this as we get to some of the other questions later but I’ll drop it in here as well — is consistency amongst laws that govern digital accessibility around the world, there is no, it’s not consistent right. Some are stronger with enforcement. Some are just as good as the paper they’re written on and that’s it. There’s that and then there’s the other piece which I think goes without saying but I think we should say it — is yes, there’s a lot of conversations that’s happening, a lot of awareness that’s great. But the reality is, in the main in the large world, billions of people that live out there, there’s still lack awareness of the fact that there are people with different disabilities or impairments who are out there, who want to use the same digital technology, whether it’s websites or apps, all the things, all the technology out there and that there are actually ways to make those things accessible.

So yeah, I’ll stop there. But yes — awareness has grown, absolutely. There’s a lot of good conversation that’s happening. But I think we would be foolhardy if we thought that this was really like on the minds of the billions of people out there who are creating and designing and building all of this technology.

Sarah Pulis: Yeah – and awareness — it’s the important first step. But I guess it’s what comes next. The awareness might be there. But it’s what comes next — how do we deliver on it? It’s great to have individuals who are aware and advocating, but often they don’t have a lot of sway if they’re trying to influence their organisation to become more accessible. And so if they don’t have support from leadership, from executive — if it’s not given the same priority as other things — then awareness doesn’t mean anything, really.

Jennison Asuncion: And I’ll just drop this in there – I’m not sure if you had a chance to look at the latest WebAIM 2026 study where they looked at the top million homepages and their level of accessibility. But one thing that stood out to me was that they looked at pages that were generated in pages other than English – and Russian and Chinese websites had proportionally higher challenges with accessibility. And that just proves the point that the web is made up of so many different websites and languages. And what comes with that is awareness in other languages and all of that.

Sarah Pulis: And what stood out to me was some of those statistics around the use of frameworks. You mentioned frameworks before and how much that could influence the accessibility of a website.

Jennison Asuncion: For better or for worse, yeah.

Sara Pulis: Exactly – that’s right. If you are aware, when you do choose a framework, hopefully you can have a look at how accessible it is, how much accessibility is baked in. But again, it can make such a difference to the output, the experience for someone. And also the overhead and the tech debt you get from an inaccessible framework when maybe down the line you suddenly realise through a complaint or otherwise that wasn’t great — and then what are you doing from there?

I think that’s a really nice segue into AI, which unsurprisingly was the theme that came through. Some of our contributors said AI is just generating inaccessible code at scale and this is going to compound the issue. But others also described it as materially improving their access in a more day-to-day, individual way. What do you think — how is AI making the internet more accessible, less accessible, or both?

Jennison Asuncion: This is going to be a theme throughout our time together Sarah — it really depends. Certainly from the perspective of things like mediating the inexistence of alternative text descriptions, or being able to generate captions where that wasn’t possible before, or described audio — those types of things to make content more accessible — I think AI is certainly making a really big difference. And I think as an end user, when we talk about AI being materially impactful, I think it goes beyond just the web. People are thinking of glasses and all those other things that under the hood have AI powering and enabling them to provide accessible experiences broadly.

But when it comes to improving the accessibility in certain areas, AI has come through in some of those areas I gave. And where it is having shortfalls — exactly what we’ve already mentioned — some of these AI-generated coding engines are simply regurgitating code out there that’s already inaccessible. So we’re multiplying the issue. Or they’re taking code that may have some accessibility baked in but not using it – I’m pointing to ARIA specifically – where it might be overusing ARIA. And then we’re compounding that by just using those code snippets again as these models are just spitting out the code that it knows because it’s grabbed those code snippets from all over the place.

So it’s a mix of overly accessible but not necessarily usable code, really bad inaccessible code, and then some (sighs) stuff that meets AA – but it’s all out there in the web sphere and it’s all being grabbed by all these models. What a mess.

Sarah Pulis: It’s only as good as the data we’re feeding it. And in essence, it’s a human problem. As humans, we’ve been creating inaccessible websites for so long. And so AI comes along and says, thank you very much — I’ll just scrape everything, good, bad or otherwise.

The other thing that’s always in the back of my mind about AI is that we had this challenge – and we’re going to talk about that more in the next theme about conformance with standards and usability – but my worry about AI is that it is going to put a focus on that technical accessibility – that ability to meet the standards or code in an accessible way. And that could be an opportunity – I mean there’s a lot of challenges with AI producing accessible code but let’s say it does produce more accessible code and makes it easier to produce that. But then does it again put that focus squarely on accessibility being more of a technical issue rather than looking at it from a usability perspective?

My hope is that organisations feel like — well, if I don’t have to invest so much in the technical accessibility side or maybe even auditing, maybe they will actually put more time and effort towards user research and usability testing with diverse users. But that’s my hope. I’m not actually sure if that’s going to be the reality. And I think back to the days where we were – and sometimes even today – still having those conversations that automated tools are not enough for checking accessibility conformance – that we still do need manual testing and what have you. Having those sorts of conversations was a lot more prevalent ten years ago – I’m worried that conversation is going to be — oh, AI makes things accessible. Well, no — it makes things technically conformant. It doesn’t necessarily make them usable. And that’s a little bit of my worry. I’m all for leveraging things that work – but that’s been in the back of my mind for a while now.

Jennison Asuncion: I couldn’t agree with you more. I have nothing really to add to what you’ve really well summarised there. And yes, this maybe a good segue to the next topic –

Sarah Pulis: I think it’s a perfect segue –

Jennison Asuncion: The idea that over time it will help the technical accessibility – but I have yet to see — whether it’s through agents or otherwise — really proven ways of testing the usability side of things and making sure we do have that accessible, usable experience.

Sarah Pulis: Yup. And it was so great to hear that come through as a theme — contributors really talked about how passing standards is not the same thing as delivering a usable and also dignified experience. And I guess it comes to the question of why does conformance with standards or compliance with regulations so often fail to produce the outcome or the experience that people really need?

Jennison Asuncion: I think it’s because of the very nature of how today we measure these things and the specificity to which we do it. There’s a lot of work being done with the next iteration of web content accessibility guidelines — and that’s a conversation for a different day, where hopefully things like this will be addressed.

But in our current format, the measuring we’ve created has made it a lot easier to just have these checkoffs that don’t necessarily consider the different disabilities or impairments as specifically as possible. And the other thing is it has to do with the speed of things — if people feel like it’s going to take forever to declare that this website or mobile app is actually conforming, they’re just not going to do it. Right?

If they need to have five or six panels of people with different disabilities testing this experience — your average Joe or Joanne or Mom & Pop company – the middle sized company – I’m not talking about the giants – I’m talking about the middle-seized, smaller companies out there – they’re just not going to do it.

So I think we really need to figure out, as we’re talking — how do we define that user experience as being usable? And are we going to make it easy enough for the average person to actually gauge that? It shouldn’t take a PhD in user accessibility for someone to determine that what they built is accessible — otherwise we’ve done a disservice anyway.

Sarah Pulis: Yeah, and it’s probably a sign of maturity — how people see accessibility. Often those that are either just starting out or still looking at how they integrate it into their systems – they do start more on the conformance side. But then also they don’t seem to progress to understanding that it is just part of good user experience design. If they’re already doing good user research and usability testing, that should just include a diverse range of people. But they often get so stuck on the conformance side that usability just never happens.

Jennison Asuncion: That’s interesting – I want to pick up on your point where organisations get stuck on the conformance side when building – but on the flip side — for those people who are going out purchasing web services or digital products, they’re looking for that document that says we conform.

So it’s really vicious. We want people to move away from those reports, but unfortunately there is no other objective way right now that can provide that level of detail. And I’m careful saying objective because one can argue that some of the stuff could be subjective. It just depends on how many people with how many different disabilities have tested this ‘experience X’. So we as an industry still need to figure some of that out.

Sarah Pulis: Absolutely. And having more users involved with the process does produce a better, more accessible experience. And whether we can tangibly measure it – I know of an organisation I work with that has required through their procurement process a level of usability testing and evidence. And that’s made a real difference in the organisations they’re procuring products from. So it is absolutely doable. But as you say, a lot of organisations – because it’s a bit more measurable – you can get that document to say does it conform, does it not, where are the gaps and what have you, and that’s the focus. It’s actually Greg Alchin from Australia who mentioned that in his response, because I know he’s very passionate and deeply into procurement, but he’s saying for some organisations, they’re not even getting to that point of asking for the evidence of conformance, let alone usability.

Jennison Asuncion: Right, and it’s interesting because on the other side, again you’ll hear organisations that want to do user testing; they aren’t sure where to even find people with different disabilities or impairments. So again it’s one of these chicken and egg things. I would say with a high level of confidence that most organisations or many organisations out there aren’t positioned to conduct user testing with people with disabilities all the time, I wish it were the case,  but I just have this gur feel that people aren’t doing that, like consistently, reliably and all that kind of stuff, so it is interesting for those organisations that are demanding to have user testing, like proof of user testing with people with disabilities, you know, when it comes to certain products I’d be interested to see like how easy it is to find, and even one supplier that has actually done it, you know, because there’s all different types of applications out there, right? There’s these big, large enterprise products where yes, you’d expect there to be user testing, right? If it’s like an HR platform that, you know, thousands of people would be using to time keep, to input their information for their salary, to be able to doubt, you know what I mean? Thise kinds of things.

Sarah Pulis: Yeah

Jennison Asuncion: Thousands and thousands of applications that are used by like 10, 12 people, a hundred people, maybe even one or two people in companies, back offices, front offices that, you know, there probably, or there are isn’t that much competition out there. Maybe there’s only one application that does this thing. And in those cases, I, at this point, I can almost guarantee in those situations, that they’re not thinking about conducting user testing with people with disabilities.

Sarah Pulis: Yep, And thinking about AI again — the ease of which you can spin up a website again, if you like, putting aside more the technical side of accessibility, If you don’t have good usability principles behind that — if AI can help on the technical side, great. But if it can’t do well on the usable side, we’re going to end up in exactly the same situation that everyone’s highlighted — this focus on conformance and then the usability is so poor it’s kind of like, well, conformance is a little bit of a moot point at that point.

Jennison Asuncion: Yeah

Sarah Pulis: So in closing, we’re going to ask you your question. If you had to answer your question — is the internet more accessible than it was 10 years ago — what would you say?

Jennison Asuncion: Without sounding like I’m going to do a readout of what everyone else said — I think aspects of the web are more accessible. And I think we have an increased capability of making the web more accessible through the tools available to us today. It’s how we decide to use those tools and the choices we make of frameworks and those kinds of things that are going to dictate it. But the short answer is yes, in some aspects, some of the web has become more accessible. But broadly speaking, I would say we haven’t really come that much further.

Sarah Pulis: Yep, Funnily enough, I’m reminded of progress over perfection. And funnily enough, I’m a huge advocate of progress over perfection.

Jennison Asuncion: Same here.

Sarah Pulis: But when I was thinking about this question, I was like — on the scale of progress to perfection, we’ve seen some of that progress. But maybe we’re a little bit too far away from perfection. And there’s a lot of reasons why, you’ve outlined some of those, but maybe what we really are is a little bit too far away from perfection at the moment. So perfection is just not sort of winning over the progress that we can see.

Jennison Asuncion: Totally agree.

Sarah Pulis: And so Jennison, what do you most hope people take away from this year’s pulse?

Jennison Asuncion: What I want people to take away from this pulse is that it’s a mixed bag.

Sarah Pulis: (Laughs)

Jennison Asuncion: It is a mixed bag. On the positive front, awareness is high. Tools are becoming that much better at creating accessible experiences. We just need to be able to get those tools in more hands of more people so that we’re all together creating accessible experiences. So my takeaway, yeah, it’s not all lost. Sure, you know, progress is slow. But we see these developments that pop up and we need to — rather than fight the technological advances that are happening, what we need to do is we need to hop on the train and figure out how to make everything that’s new, that’s coming through, as accessible as it can be. Rather than go ‘don’t use it, don’t use it’ — let’s look at how, what we can make it accessible.

Sarah Pulis: Yeah, yeah, No, definitely. For me, the other thing that comes through — and it’s probably because to me, Global Accessibility Awareness Day is the awareness side, But for me it’s also always been about the community. And you use the words ‘together’, you know, we’re doing this together. And, when I was sitting down and listening to everyone’s responses from all around the world, it did show that although we all have unique perspectives, we are all working on those same challenges together all around the world. And I think sometimes being an advocate, being a specialist, fighting the good fight — it can be quite wearing for people. And I know there’s been a lot of discussion about this, you know, and with individuals in conferences even. And I think, you know, on the, like the less sort of tangible side, just seeing the responses of people — not just obviously in the pulse, the people we’ve asked, but also so many other people out there that are also looking at exactly what is the next thing we can do? How do we build that awareness? How do we change awareness into action? But also knowing that there are other people out there, banding together to really come together and see how we can make a difference as a collective too.

Jennison Asuncion: And well, you know, what I’m hoping is that there are people who are watching or listening to this who are doing it for the first time, in terms of, that they are coming to this with an open mind, not having known anything about accessibility. Do you know what I mean, It’s not just going to be people like us who live and work in it, nodding in agreement, right. Sure that’s great for us ‘cause we like to have that as well, but  I’m hoping that there are some people out there watching and listening who are going to walk away from this and go I had never thought about this before. And how can I make what I’m doing usable to those millions and billions of people with different disabilities and impairments out there?

Sarah Pulis: Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Jennison. It’s been wonderful.

Jennison Asuncion: Thanks Sarah. And look, how far did we go over time that much?

Sarah Pulis: (Laughs.)

End title card and voiceover: Thanks to everyone who joined in the Global Accessibility Pulse 2026 — an Intopia initiative for GAAD