PR Newswire
AudioEye's 2026 Digital Accessibility Index finds the average UK page has 66 accessibility issues, with the highest risk on conversion pages where users buy, book, or sign up
AudioEye, Inc. (Nasdaq: AEYE) ("AudioEye" or the "Company"), a global leader in digital accessibility, today released new research on the accessibility of UK websites and how AI-driven search is shifting where accessibility risk appears for businesses.
The findings point to a UK web that is largely inaccessible. Of the more than 14,400 pages AudioEye scanned across seven industries, 89% of pages had at least 10 accessibility issues. Across all sites, the average was 66 issues per page.
The research also found that the majority of accessibility issues appeared on interior pages, such as product listings, booking forms, and service pages. AI search tools increasingly route users straight to these interior pages, meaning the least accessible part of a site is often the first one visitors encounter.
"Every page is a front door now. Most accessibility programmes were built to check a handful of pages, not the hundreds a modern site publishes," said Kelly Georgevich, Chief Executive Officer of AudioEye. "Accessibility at that scale takes AI-driven automation to find and fix issues across every page, combined with expert audits and custom fixes for the high-risk issues that automation cannot accurately resolve. This is how AudioEye helps businesses protect the key pages where customers buy, book, and sign up."
Key Findings
- AI search sends UK users to a site's most inaccessible pages. UK interior pages averaged about 5% more accessibility issues than homepages, with five of seven industries showing more issues on interior pages. When multiplied across every interior page a site publishes, that small per-page gap becomes thousands of issues on the pages users are most likely to land on.
- UK organisations now face three accessibility laws at once, and enforcement is getting stricter. The Equality Act 2010, the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (PSBAR), and the European Accessibility Act (EAA) all apply to many of the same organisations. The EAA is the newest, and it applies to any UK organisation selling into the EU. Some EU countries have begun steps to enforce through warning letters, legal action, or audits.
- Five issues cause nearly 40% of all failures found. All five are common elements that assistive technology and AI systems rely on to read and understand a page. Each percentage below shows how often the issue appeared across all scanned pages.
- Links that do not warn users before leaving the site: 91%
- Vague link text: 71%
- Low-contrast interactive elements: 70%
- Missing skip navigation: 61%
- Heading structure out of order: 61%
- Healthcare stands out as a clear outlier. UK healthcare homepages averaged 112 issues per page, nearly double the 66 found on healthcare interior pages, the widest homepage-to-interior-page gap of any industry measured.
Organisations can assess their accessibility risk with a free scan using AudioEye's website accessibility checker.
Full UK findings are available at: https://www.audioeye.com/gb/digital-accessibility-index/2026/
Methodology
Findings are drawn from AudioEye's 2026 Digital Accessibility Index, based on automated scans of 14,424 pages across 475 UK websites in seven industry segments: retail and consumer services, healthcare and sciences, public and non-profit, legal and financial services, technology and digital services, industrial and manufacturing, and professional services. Across all pages scanned, the average was 66 accessibility issues per page. Automated scanning detects a subset of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) criteria, so actual issue counts are likely higher than reported here.
About AudioEye
AudioEye exists to ensure the digital future we build is accessible. The gold standard for digital accessibility, AudioEye's comprehensive solution combines industry-leading AI automation technology with expert fixes informed by the disability community. This powerful combination delivers industry-leading protection, ensuring businesses of all sizes - including over 129,000 customers such as Samsung, Lands' End, and Samsonite - meet and exceed compliance standards. With 25 US patents, AudioEye's solution includes 24/7 accessibility monitoring, automated WCAG issue testing and fixes, expert testing, developer tools, and legal protection, empowering organisations to confidently create accessible digital experiences for all.
Media Contact
Mike Barton
press@audioeye.com
Investor Contact
Tom Colton
Gateway Group, Inc.
AEYE@gateway-grp.com
+1 949 574 3860
View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/ai-is-directing-people-to-the-least-accessible-pages-on-uk-websites-new-audioeye-study-finds-302861283.html
