I’ve lived long enough, and worked in accessibility long enough, to have honed a healthy skepticism when I hear about the Next Big Thing. I’ve seen lush website launches that look great, until I activate a screen reader.

Yet, in spite of it all, accessibility does evolve, but quietly rather than dramatically. As I gaze ahead to 2026, several trends are already taking shape. These are more than theories and ideas; they are practical shifts that website owners are beginning to feel today.

Here are some likely, meaningful changes on the near horizon.

1. AI Will Improve Accessibility Tools—But Not Replace Expertise

I have to admit, over the past year, ChatGPT has become my confidante, advisor, reality checker, summarizer, and occasional Spanish interpreter. It’s like having a faithful human assistant who never grows weary of my repeated inquiries. But like a human assistant, it sometimes takes a few tries to get it right. That’s why I see AI more as a valuable helper than a project manager. It’s changing how accessibility testing tools work and getting better at identifying patterns, grouping related issues, and prioritizing findings. This trend will continue.

What will not happen is full automation of accessibility evaluation. I do not trust it with determining whether alternative text is meaningful, evaluating interaction flow and user expectations, or understanding context and intent.

In other words, AI can help raise some flags quickly, but I do not trust it to decide whether an experience actually works for a human being.

So, the real shift for 2026 will be AI’s contribution to workflow efficiency, not replacement. Organizations that pair smarter tools with knowledgeable human reviewers will gain speed and consistency. Those that expect AI to do it for them will continue to miss critical barriers—just faster than before.

2. WCAG 2.2 Will Increasingly Become the Procurement Baseline

WCAG 2.2 may no longer feel new to the industry, but many organizations are only beginning to adopt it. WebAIM began offering it to our evaluation customers as the default as soon as it was finalized, but some customers whose internal standards specify 2.1 remain hesitant. When a new version is published, there’s always an interim time when, to some, the old version still feels current and the new version feels experimental and over–the-top. During 2026, I’d like to see the landscape shift so that 2.1 feels old (which it is) and 2.2 just feels current and normal. There’s nothing really revolutionary about 2.2; the changes largely address real barriers that users experience daily: Focus appearance, accessible authentication, dragging alternatives, consistent help…

It is up to those of us in the industry to lead this shift. In the coming year, I expect WCAG 2.2 to become the default expectation in procurement language, RFPs, and accessibility evaluation.

3. Native HTML Will Gradually Come Back

After years of JavaScript-heavy, ARIA-laden custom widgets, I’m noticing a subtle and gradual shift back toward native HTML elements and browser-supported behaviors. Native HTML elements have built-in accessibility support, receive ongoing browser improvements, work more predictably across assistive technologies, and reduce the need for complex ARIA patterns.

WebAIM’s standard accessibility training presentation implores developers to “just use a button” instead of creating clickable <span> or <div> elements with JavaScript events and ARIA layered on. Out in the field, I’m seeing this becoming less of an issue. However, I regularly see custom widgets implemented where a standard <select> or <details>/<summary> would do the job.

So, in 2026, I expect to see fewer fully custom widgets and more careful use of <button>, <dialog>, <details>/<summary>, <select>, and other form controls—often styled heavily (and that’s fine), but functionally native. Teams that embrace native patterns will ship faster, debug less, and maintain accessibility more reliably than those rebuilding basic controls from scratch. I’ll be watching the WebAIM Million to see how this prediction plays out.

4. Accessibility Debt Will Be Recognized as a Business Risk

Accessibility barriers accumulate quietly through redesigns, framework updates, staff turnover, and rushed deadlines. The result is accessibility debt—a backlog of small issues that eventually snowball into large ones. The larger the backlog gets, the more onerous it appears.

However, more organizations are beginning to recognize that accessibility debt increases legal exposure (especially those organizations that are in litigation), slows down development cycles, undermines user trust, and costs more to remediate later.

Over the course of 2026, forward-thinking organizations will increasingly treat accessibility maintenance as ongoing infrastructure, not a one-time remediation project. Regular evaluations, regression testing, and staff training will increasingly be understood as risk management more than an optional “nice-to-have.”

5. Native App Accessibility Will Influence Web Practices More Directly

Native app accessibility is no longer a separate conversation—it’s actively shaping web accessibility thinking. Concepts like clear, concise control names, predictable focus management, gesture alternatives, and logical reading order apply equally to web and native platforms. As teams evaluate both web and mobile products, accessibility practices will converge around shared principles rather than platform-specific checklists. This cross-pollination will benefit users and challenge teams to think beyond traditional “web-only” paradigms and assumptions.

6. User Preferences Will Matter More Than Page-Level Settings

Users increasingly rely on system and browser preferences, like prefers-reduced-motion, high contrast, forced colors, dark mode, text size, and default zoom. During 2026, the accessibility industry will begin to treat the idea of a single “accessible” design as only the beginning, instead of the destination, and increasingly anticipate and respect user preferences across environments. Designs that override system settings, hard-code colors, or ignore user preferences will feel increasingly brittle—and increasingly inaccessible to users.

7. WCAG 3 Thinking Will Influence Practice Before the Standard Arrives

WCAG 3 is still years away, but its underlying philosophy—focusing on outcomes, tasks, and usability rather than rigid pass/fail criteria—is already influencing how accessibility professionals think.

We can expect more emphasis on task completion, more discussion of severity and impact, greater recognition of partial conformance, and broader inclusion of cognitive and learning considerations. Organizations that adopt this mindset early will be better prepared for future standards while delivering better experiences right now.

Looking Ahead

Accessibility progress rarely makes headlines. It happens through careful decisions, better defaults, and sustained attention to user needs. The most impactful changes coming next year are practical, structural, and long overdue—not the stuff that grabby news items are made of, but the kind of improvements that users will feel nonetheless.

Organizations that succeed in accessibility will be those that invest in people, not just tools, treat accessibility as a journey rather than a destination, build on native HTML foundations, recognize and respect user preferences, and focus on practical outcomes.