Can your AI pass the accessibility test?

Can your AI pass the accessibility test? Carie Fisher Sr. Accessibility Program Manager – GitHub Aaron Gustafson Principal TPM, Accessibility Innovation – Microsoft Jessie Lorenz Program Manager, AI – Microsoft

Project Planning Design Development & Coding Code Review & CI/CD Public Release Typical software development lifecycle Customer Feedback

1000x 100x 10x Project Planning Design Development & Coding Code Review & CI/CD Public Release The cost of inaccessibility Customer Feedback

AI accelerates the pace of software development… and the creation of accessibility issues.

Project Planning Design Development & Coding Code Review & CI/CD Public Release Accessibility belongs in the workflow Customer Feedback

Grounded in disability Project Planning Design Development & Coding Code Review & CI/CD Public Release Customer Feedback Planning should be grounded in disability

37% of voice-initiated Copilot tasks are abandoned mid-flow Source: Copilot Product Data, 2025 1B+ People worldwide have a disability 76% of neurodiverse employees perform better at work with Copilot Source: Microsoft Inside Track, 2026 Source: EY x Microsoft, 2024 Building voice with disability at the center

Grounded in disability Design tools Project Planning Design Development & Coding Code Review & CI/CD Public Release Customer Feedback Design tools need to make inclusive design easy

Accessibility Assistant for Figma aka.ms/Accessibility AssistantForFigma

Grounded in disability Design tools Coding models & unit tests Project Planning Design Development & Coding Code Review & CI/CD Public Release Customer Feedback All code must be consistent and validated

Coding models aren’t great on their own… 100 75 50 25 0 Base Model Instruction Files Source: microsoft.github.io/a11y-llm-eval-report Skills Deterministic Tools

Grounded in disability Design tools Project Planning Design Coding models Scanners & AI & unit tests remediation Development & Coding Code Review & CI/CD Public Release Code review is the last line of defense Customer Feedback

GitHub’s AIpowered accessibility scanner

Grounded in disability Design tools Project Planning Design Coding models Scanners & AI & unit tests remediation Development & Coding Code Review & CI/CD Public Release Customer Feedback When accessibility is integrated, magic happens

Tasks → Copilot Cowork → Speak to Done What I said: What got done: “Find that track meet email from three weeks ago, add it to my calendar, and text the other parent” Track Meet Lincoln High School Date: Sat, Jun 21 When: 10:00 AM Where: Lincoln High School Added to calendar Text sent to other parent Voice → Done

Scale inclusion, not exclusion aka.ms/a11y-scanner-resources