Three shifts reshaping eCommerce in 2026

Welcome and Introductions

Josh: Hello, everyone, and welcome. I’m really glad that you’re here with us today. I’m Josh Basile, the community relations manager at accessiBe, and today we’re going to talk about three shifts reshaping e-commerce in 2026 and why they matter for conversation, conversions, compliance, and visibility. These shifts aren’t abstract. They’re already showing up and how customers discover brands, how revenue is won and lost, and how legal risk is changing businesses online. Next slide. So this is an opinion. It’s based on original research with 300 e-commerce leaders, plus we’ve been supported by thousands of live stories every day. we’re sharing today reflects real patterns we’re seeing across industries.

What’s breaking? What’s changing and what forward-looking teams are already adjusting. Next slide. So, before we jump into the shifts, I want to ground today in people, not just data, because these perspectives of this panel are shaped by lived experience and real-world work. I’m going to start briefly by sharing my own journey. When I was a teenager, I was in waist-high water, and a wave picked me up, threw me over my boogie board, and paralyzed me below my shoulders. That day changed my life forever and set me on a path to doing good and being on a mission to change the world.

Since then, I started a nonprofit where I get to reach thousands of families impacted by paralysis and disability every year. I graduated magnaum laad over a decade ago from law school and without ever flipping a page with my fingers thanks to technology. And now I’ve had an incredible legal career focused on disability rights and changing the lives of those who have been catastrophically injured.

I joined the accessiBe family 5 years ago. And as the community relations manager, I have had a strong focus on ensuring that the disability community has a seat at the table within our company as we build out our technologies and as they evolve. I was honored last year, in 2025, to be included on Forbes’ first-ever accessibility 100 list for law and government. And that was something that I’m truly proud of.

And it’s just something that accessibility is so important to me and so many others in the community and worth fighting for each and every day. I’d love to throw it over now to Kelly Smino to introduce herself.

Kelly: Okay. Hello everyone, and good afternoon to those on the East Coast, and hopefully staying warm on all this snow and ice. I’m based in the DC area. My name is Kelly Smino. I’m a lawyer, and my journey into law was really based on my own personal life experiences. When I was 16, I was in a car wreck and was paralyzed.

I sustained a spinal cord injury, and in one second, I had to learn to navigate my life in a new way. Now I’m the owner of a law firm, and thankfully I’m what people call a happy lawyer because I get to do things that bring meaning to me, and a lot of what I do is helping people in their journeys after catastrophic events, but also connecting with the disability community and also building those bridges on accessibility. We can all be more connected through accessibility. And today, I am glad to share insights on the laws.

What do the laws and accessibility standards say as they pertain to websites, because at the end of the day, we all want to better connect with people out there while also mitigating risk? So glad to be here. Thank you, Kelly. Share a little bit about yourself.

Tanuj: Hi everybody, my name is Tanuj A. You can call me TJ if that’s easier to remember. I’m based in Long Island, New York. And I am the owner of Wix Gods. We are a Wix-focused web agency, although we also do other platforms as well, including WordPress, GoDaddy, Shopify, Squarespace, you name it. In my journey as an agency owner, I came across an ADA lawsuit for one of my clients early on in 2022. And that’s what sort of introduced me to the world of accessibility and what it pertains to. Our client ended up getting sued for not having an accessible website.

And it made me realize that this is not just a one-off situation. Most small business owners simply don’t know or don’t have the resources to make their sites accessible, which can open them to a plethora of, you know, lawsuits, demand letters, and just legal headaches. All in all, we were able to get that client in question out of hot water. The case went to arbitration, was decided in their favor, and Accessib’s widgets, their audits, and our website redesigns had a lot to do with that.

But we did not want any other small business owner to ever be in that situation again. Which is why we started a nonprofit called Access Heroes, whose sole aim is to provide free consultations, education, and resources to small business owners like yourself to help them make their websites accessible and improve their SEO, improve their, you know, target audience, allow for more ethical inclusion of people with disabilities, and at the same time reduce any legal risk.

So, I’m here today to talk about being on the ground as both a business owner and a web agency, the shifts we’re seeing in e-commerce, and how accessibility ties into all of that. Thanks for having me.

Josh: Absolutely. I love this lineup today. We’re bringing it to you with the legal, business, and community perspectives. And as we dive deeper in, you know, set your expectations. Now, this is a multi-angle conversation because this is how these shifts actually show up in the real world. At any time, please put any questions you have in the chat. We have a great Q&A at the end, but we’ll go to the next slide. So, with this, we’re going to walk through the shifts, show you how they connect, share what leading teams are doing differently, and leave plenty of time for questions.

So again, throw your questions in the chat. My role today is to help guide the conversation and pull in different perspectives as we go. Next slide. So to set the stage, these shifts aren’t just happening in isolation. They’re stacking on top of each other. And that’s where things get really, really interesting. Tanuj, I’d love to bring you in here and kind of see, from what you see day-to-day.

How AI Is Changing E-commerce

How is the market actually changing for e-commerce teams?

Tanuj: Sure. And you know, I’d love to give you guys some perspective on how these shifts are happening and how they tie into accessibility at the core of it all. Right. The first point is, you know, pretty self-explanatory.

AI is a word we’ve heard time and again over the last couple years almost to the point that it’s sort of boring to hear it but it’s a very important shift in not just how we do business but how we interact with the internet in general right so AI used to be like a nice to have you know think chat bots copy suggestions maybe some automations here and there but in recent months AI has actively shaped how people make decisions online this is because AI is now being used to create adaptive content that is dynamic and that is not device specific but visitor specific.

Let’s say you are visiting a website from Philadelphia. If the website is related to the Super Bowl, it now knows to show you content about the Eagles. Same thing if you’re visiting from New York, it knows to show you content about the Giants. These dynamic changes and adaptive content are really driving the e-commerce industry toward higher conversions and better outcomes. The problem there, though, is that these dynamic changes happen only after the site goes live. And the problem there is that it creates a moving target for accessibility.

So you can’t rely on manual one-time audits anymore. You need some form of ongoing monitoring to guide you throughout the process in this changing landscape. So, pretty much, to summarize that first point, you know, AI makes sites smarter, but it also makes them more fragile if accessibility isn’t addressed early on in an automated and ongoing way, right? The second point, which is probably the most important one, is that discovery is moving off of your website. Now, we’ve probably all heard about SEO, which stands for search engine optimization.

But now that’s sort of being replaced by GEO and AEO, which are generative engine optimizations and answer engine optimizations, which all sort of focus on how AI references and cites your websites in their outputs. Right now, customers no longer use only traditional methods. You know, a couple of years ago, if you wanted to look for a plumber, you would go to Google, type in plumbers near me, ” and click on the first four blue links that appeared. Nowadays, we’re seeing a shift in that. Almost 23% of traffic, in some cases, is people going directly to ChatGPT and trying to maybe figure out the problem on their own. Hey, my toilet’s clogged.

What do I do? And then at some point in that conversation, they want to hand it off to an expert. So, they ask, “What are some highly rated plumbers in my area?” or “Where can I get this service?” So visitors are now coming to the website because ChatGPT recommended you, or because Google summarized your site in its output, or because they found you through an AI answer. So, essentially, this means your site isn’t just built for humans anymore. It’s built for machines that explain your business to humans, right?

And although GEO by itself is a, you know, a whole thing that needs to be maintained and monitored monthly, the similarities between accessibility and GEO are extremely stark. AI engines essentially rely on things like semantic structure, clean headings, and proper labels like alt text to rank and deliver your site in results. And those are the exact same foundations that also power accessibility. So accessibility and GEO sort of go hand in hand, and doing one directly benefits the other in this case. And then, number three, accessibility is becoming infrastructure. And this is completely true.

What surprises most business owners is that ADA lawsuits and accessibility demand letters are no longer limited to large brands. They’re typically triggered by automated scans and can affect even the most well-meaning businesses. You could be a nonprofit with the most altruistic of missions. But if you’re not ADA-compliant and you get sued, you’re in hot water regardless of your mission or how benevolent your company might seem. Right?

So a common pattern we see on the ground is websites built a couple of years ago; they’ve been through a couple of redesigns since, but accessibility as a topic was never focused on or revisited. So what’s changed here is it’s not just enforcement of the laws, it’s expectations. Accessibility has become infrastructure. It’s like hosting, security, databases, or backups. You want it ingrained inherently into the fabric of the website from the ground up so that even as the site continues to evolve, as you add new products, new features, the accessibility portion grows with the website.

So keep in mind that the businesses that struggle in this case are not the careless ones. They’re the ones who assumed accessibility was a one-time task, and they got complacent about it. So this is something you have to stay on top of and do on an ongoing basis. I’m sure we’ll post a link later, but if any of you would like to pick my brain, me personally, my personal calendar link is in the Zoom chat. Feel free to book a consult, and I’ll be more than happy to walk you through any of the things that we just mentioned. Tanuj, thank you for that.

And so, what I’m really hearing you say is that these aren’t separate problems to solve. They’re like they reinforce each other. And that’s kind of where the real impact shows up. And again, thank you for your insights on that. That’s you’re awesome. Next slide.

Conversion and Checkout Friction

So, cart conversion is where revenue is quietly being lost, and often with teams not realizing why. Okay, next slide. So here’s the stat that stops a lot of people in their tracks. 260 billion in sales could be recovered simply by improving checkout usability. So, Tanuj, can you share a little bit more about your perspective from a web agency?

Tanuj: Sorry, I was on mute. 100%. Yes. You know, this is what we call conversion rate optimization. Essentially, it’s not just about how people find you. It’s about once they get on your site, how easy is it for them to make a decision? Do you have a clear call to action? If somebody comes to your cart and puts something in their cart and they leave, do you follow up with automated emails? Do you try to get that person back in by sending them a promo code?

There are a bunch of tactics and methodologies we prescribe to make sure you don’t just have people land on the site. You actually handhold them all the way to the end, until they make that decision and become a customer, one way or the other. It’s so important. I know for myself that I use different accessibility tools and technologies to get myself from the start to the end. And it’s great to find what I’m looking for, but when I get to the card and use my voice dictation software, I’m not able to type in my credit card information or my name.

It’s just like, and then I have to wait for a family member or friend to get home. And by that point, I’m usually on another site checking out where I’m buying a different product from a competitor. And you know, I want that first experience to be a good experience. And when it is a good experience, I come back again and again as a repeat customer. And that’s what the disability community does. Like where statistics have shown that the disability community is the most brand-loyal community.

When you’re taken care of once, you come back again and again, and you recommend it to all your friends and family as well. So, next slide. This is kind of with this side. This is where kind of the disconnect really shows up. 70% of global cart abandonment, 72% of brands say that they’re confident in checkout, and 40% haven’t audited checkout in over a year. If abandonment is that high, where is the confidence coming from? So most teams assume that if something were broken, analytics would tell them so, which is not always the case. Next slide. So this is kind of here is where the quiet gap is.

80% agree that accessibility improvements reduce abandonment but rarely test for it. That’s got to change. 60 62% worry about checkout performance. Analytics show performance issues. They don’t show the kind of friction experienced by someone using keyboard screen readers or assisted technology like me and others with disabilities. Next slide. Card abandonment isn’t random. It’s unclear fields, extra steps, and missing cues that create hesitation and bad experiences. So, when friction isn’t visible internally, re revenue doesn’t crash. It just quietly kind of walks or wheels away. And that’s why these issues kind of persist over time without being checked on. Next slide.

So, let’s shift to the discovery. So, AI is changing where discovery begins, and it’s happening structurally and not gradually. I would love for everybody who’s a part of this today in the Zoom chat. I would love for you to answer this question. How many times in the last month have you searched for a product using AI tools? Thank you, Glenn.

Yes, many times AI tools are here to stay, and we’re using them to have better, faster experiences, especially as they get to know us and we trust them more, and it’s just, it’s almost like a personal assistant to go find and search the internet for us. So, next slide. So, discovery doesn’t start with a search bar anymore. It starts with a question. It starts with a prompt. Nearly a billion prompts go into AI tools every day, driving over a billion website visits. This is the new storefront as we see it. Next, next slide.

So most people are using AI for research, kind of narrowing the options, comparing, and deciding who to trust. To surface early, AI needs structure. Accessibility helps AI understand your product’s content and images that much better. It’s just essential today. Next slide. So, with AI, it can’t recommend what it can’t understand, and so the structure matters. So semantic HTML, clear labels, and structured content aren’t just accessibility best practices. They’re kind of discoverability advantages. It’s best practices put in front of AI technology so they can do what they do best. Next slide. So 75% of brands are already adjusting content for AI.

24% are planning, and only 1% say that they’re not. So accessibility boosts AI discoverability and helps brands lead rather than react. Next slide. So the regulatory kind of environment is shifting, and enforcement is really, really accelerating. Kelly, I would love you to kind of bring to the table your perspective and what you are seeing from an enforcement and legal standpoint? Thanks, Josh.

And this is so important because, as we all know, like this, you know, AI is such a moving target right now, and often, you know, on the side of the law, as a lawyer, I can tell you that our court systems are very reactionary. We’re not ahead of the curve on any of this. We’re just trying to keep up little by little. And this is certainly what we’re seeing. There are a lot of regulations, laws, and interpretations floating around, but they all point in one direction: accessibility matters and is required. Next slide.

So we can see how accessibility the expectations of accessibility in the digital space are aligning across many different regions. There are different ones depending on where you live. Many of us in the US have heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It’s been around since 1990. It really set a lot of the framework for what we see in accessibility. And to be clear, under the ADA, websites do need to be accessible. Let me repeat it. Under the ADA, you need to be operating a website in an accessible way.

But the ADA is just one of many different types of legislation or regulations that we see across the globe. The Accessible Canada Act (ACA) is going in the same direction. Websites need to be accessible. The EAA, the European Accessibility Act, again is showing that websites and the digital space must be accessible for all, and the best way we can really- I mean, there are data points we can track. For a while, we were really unclear about the direction. You could see that there had been litigation brought related to web accessibility here and there.

But this graph shows a growing trend from 2020 to 2026. It’s not here and there; it’s everywhere. It’s systematic, and it’s going to continue to trend upwards. There has been a 73% increase in digital accessibility lawsuits since 2019. And everything is showing that people care about this. People want to be able to be every part of a person with a disability who requires accessibility in the digital space. Every part of their life touches needs requires access in the digital space, and that’s why it matters, and that’s why we’re seeing these cases trending upward.

Now you can see the trend the increase in 73% but we can really narrow in more specifically on who who that is affecting what types of businesses I mean I myself have a small business and often it can be overwhelming to consider all the different things that you have to keep running but I’m telling you accessibility the risk of that potential demand letter coming in the mail to you the demand the potential risk of that lawsuit being filed against you it is not worth it in the ecommerce space it is disproportionately being targeted being being demand letters being sent if you have a ecom business.

70% of the lawsuits are against e-commerce businesses. 70%. And that, in real numbers, means that over 5,000 accessibility web accessibility lawsuits were filed just last year. And we’re going to see that number be bigger in 2026 and even bigger in 2027. And of the people surveyed who have e-commerce teams, 43% said that they had faced some type of legal claim against them. And again, most of the time, e-commerce businesses are not intentionally trying to leave out this very large sector of our society, but when it happens, it has a big impact and puts you at a substantial risk.

So, you know, we all, as business owners on my side, through the legal lens like you, have to look at accessibility risks as operational risks. Because inaccessibility has a cost. There is a cost to engaging in a legal process.

There is a cost to hiring lawyers. There is a cost to potentially having to pay damages to the side bringing the claim. And there’s a cost to ultimately having to make your website accessible. So that is why, instead of again being on this very reactionary path that we are all often on, we have to prepare ourselves, because it is tracking upward. It is becoming a greater risk and needs to be a higher priority in business planning. Accessibility has to be one of those buckets that is influencing businesses’ decisions sooner rather than later. Because ultimately, if it’s a reaction, if it’s something that is dealt with when it becomes a problem, it’s going to come at a very high cost. These are part of the process of working through a legal claim for inaccessibility on a website.

It is costing businesses a lot of money, and thinking of it on the front end, planning for it, reducing that risk, is what we all need to strive for, especially in the ecom business.

Josh: Kelly, thank you so much for that. And it’s just the costs, the time, the headache. Businesses want to focus on what they do best: their mission and the drive to start the business and serve their customers. So, it’s just, it’s so essential to, you know, and what was kind of clear from what you were saying is that this isn’t theoretical anymore in accessibility; it now has kind of those measurable costs, both financially and operationally. next.

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. And just what you know it we’ve see in Europe like they’re they were assigning like set fines for these types of of issues where if you’re operating a website that affects people in Europe which that could be a person in the US but having an impact in Europe I mean that could be over you know half half a million euro in the US we are looking at you know tens of thousands of dollars to affect these to having to to work back and and look at the litigation. So, it comes at a very steep cost.

Josh: Thank you, Kelly. And next slide. There we go.

Where Discovery, Conversion, and Enforcement Meet

This is kind of where the three shifts overlap. It’s discovery, conversion, and enforcement. And that overlap creates opportunities for teams willing to treat accessibility as infrastructure, not as an afterthought. Next slide. So discoverability as AI becomes the storefront, barrier-free, high-intent flows, and reduces legal risk as enforcement becomes operational. Accessibility is the unlock across all three. Next slide.

Readiness Checklist and Next Steps

So, we do have this readiness checklist. Not going to kind of dive crazy deep into any of them, but this slide is really a takeaway. You don’t need to know everything at once, but you do need visibility and to start somewhere. Next slide. So, we’ll drop the link to the full 2026 accessibility trends report in the chat. It goes deeper into how teams are operationalizing these shifts and exactly what to do next. Next slide. So this is where technology expertise and scale kind of come together. Accessibility works when it’s kind of continuous. It’s not just a switch that you can flip.

So automatic automate what scales test what breaks and make and maintain what changes and ex access has a full suite of services wherever you’re at in your journey whether it’s the accessWidget the accessFlow all of our services to be able to get PDF remediation and everything beyond with VPATs you name it accessibies got your back during this journey We’re now going to dive into Q&A and and let’s let’s do that.

So, let’s open it up. And we’ll pull in Tanuj for marketing and operator questions, and Kelly for legal and enforcement questions. So do you want to jump in with any of the questions from the chat, or do we have one now? How can I ensure my checkout process is fully optimized and accessible? I’ll go back to the checklist if anyone wants to. Thank you. Spare Tanuj. Do you want to grab that one?

Tanuj: Yeah, I can shed some light on that. So, it all comes down to a bunch of variables, right? Number one would be what platform you’re on, whether it’s Wix or Shopify. Once you’ve sort of identified that, you can essentially create workflows to ensure that the checkout process is accessible. And ” optimize and accessible are two different things, right? Optimize could mean you want the highest conversion rate or the lowest drop-off rate from someone landing on the page to someone making a decision. accessible, although it goes hand in hand with optimizing it.

Accessible means that you don’t want people dropping off because they couldn’t access a button or they couldn’t use, you know, a vocation or they couldn’t use certain tools that are necessary for them to take out any hindrances or hurdles to get to the end. This is a pretty good checklist, but we could add that there are ways to audit your checkup processes using accessibility audit tools, and there’s also more comprehensive auditing you can do. If you’d like to go over that in detail, feel free to hit the link and book a call with me.

I’d be more than happy to walk you through your specific use case on exactly what needs to happen. Let me finish. I have another question for you from Eve. What happens if our website isn’t fully accessible yet? And can you provide any suggestions on what somebody in that situation could do next? Yeah. The very first thing you can do is conduct an audit. Accessibly has a pretty good scanner called accessScan. It’s free to use. You essentially just drop in your URL, and it’ll tell you exactly what parts of your website are not accessible. At that point, you have two options.

You can, if you’re technical enough, go through that list and fix all of those options yourself. In some cases, your platform, whether that’s Shopify or Wix, will also have its own accessibility checklist that you can follow. But once you’re done with all the accessibility checklist items and checked them off, as an extra measure of precaution, you want to get a widget or tool like the Accessibe widget for that extra layer of protection, since it comes with litigation support. It comes with, you know, monthly audits and reports. It sort of puts the headache away.

So, it moves you from a one-time solution or fix to an ongoing remediation process, which is exactly the pitfall that most people who get sued for accessibility law lawsuits fail to recognize. So, you can definitely do the audits and the checklists, but on top of that, to go that extra level, get a widget in place that protects you on an ongoing basis.

Kelly: I can say from that question from a legal perspective that, you know, what courts, what judges look at is what steps a business is taking to correct what they have identified as a problem.

So, of course, like, I would say if you have already identified that your website is not fully accessible from a legal standpoint, that is a risk; you see, that remains a deficit because if someone’s trying to utilize a certain thing and they’re unable to, that could cause exposure. But that is why it’s so important that you have already recognized that there is not yet full accessibility and that you immediately start taking those steps. Don’t wait until you get the demand letter. Don’t wait until you get the lawsuit filed. You start now and work on it.

And especially with so many tools available, accessibe, it’s accessible; you know, you have it as a plugin, and it doesn’t mean you have to be technical. It allows you to do the work for you. And so courts know that. Courts know that their judges know that there are different tools out there, and they want to see that people are putting in the effort, making the movement to make their website accessible.

Josh: Thank you, Kelly. And Brandon in the chat says, “How can Accessibw specifically help e-commerce brands address these challenges?” I know you guys mentioned some things to do, but could you add a few more to answer Brandon’s question?

Tanuj: How can accessiBe specifically help? Well, the biggest help from making your site ADA-compliant comes from a couple of things. Number one, by making your site accessible, you’re automatically casting a wider net. Data shows that almost one in five Americans live with one of these disabilities that require accessible addresses. So, simply by adding accessibility to your website and making it ADA compliant, you are now essentially broadening your target audience by almost 20- 25%. So you’re casting a wider net, right? So that’s more eyeballs, more potential customers that you can now serve. The second benefit is SEO.

SEO, GEO, and any sort of search engine optimization go hand in hand with accessibility because accessibility and the way sites are structured s follow the same principles. Making your site accessible directly improves your ranking and visibility in Google, ChatGPT, and other search platforms. So it’s not just for, you know, inclusion; it’s also to improve your traffic, conversions, and outcomes on the site. And last but not least, probably the most important is that accessiBe can help you thwart any legal headache. Whether that’s a lawsuit, whether that’s a demand letter that you’ve received.

From my personal experience, I’ll tell you that most businesses think that an ADA lawsuit is something that they can just shrug off. That’s not the case. As Kelly said before, in my experience, I’ve seen that the average lawsuit, whether it’s a settlement or goes to court, costs you a minimum of $15 to $20,000, maybe even more in some cases. And that’s just not the headache that you want to deal with. It is something that can be easily avoided, ‘cos really, what the courts want to see is that you’re not negligent in your behavior in making your sites compliant.

They want to see actionable steps that you’ve taken to ensure that you’re, you know, facing ADA compliance in an ongoing way, and you’re not, you’re not dropping the ball and saying, “Hey, maybe this is not for me.” It is mandatory for all websites. And having ADA compliance not only improves your brand reputation but also directly increases the number of people who can potentially become customers. So, it’s just a win-win-win situation in my opinion. But again, happy to discuss further if you have a specific question about your website. Feel free to hit that link, and we can discuss. Thank you, Dish.

And you know, with that being said, any e-commerce business, the beauty of Accessibe is that whether you’re a small business, medium, large, or wherever you’re at in your journey, they have a system or a product or an approach in place to support you wherever you’re at in your journey. So, the big thing is no business wakes up saying, you know what, I want to exclude people with disabilities today, or I want to exclude people with disabilities throughout our journey. They just think that it’s just that they don’t know what they don’t know, but once a business knows that, they could do something to address this.

It’s now up to them to choose what they do next.

So now that you have information, you have options; that’s the power to take you to the next level. Make sure you do better around this, and actually address it to improve your business in its own right. Another question in the chat is: What does it mean to make my site AI and accessibility ready? that’s pretty much you know as I said before they kind of go hand in hand right both accessibility and AI ready websites all come down to the semantic structure clear labeling of the website making sure you have the right alt text essentially you’re getting your site ready so that the visitor is not really just humans anymore it’s machines and humans so you want the site to be machine readable right whether that’s AI chatbots AI agents what have you.

And statistics show that as we progress in the AI race, more and more users on the internet will be bots. At one point in time, whether that’s 2 years from now, 5 years from now, the internet will be dominated by bots that outnumber actual active human users. And when that happens, you want to make sure that your site is not just then, but transitioned to a way that it is readable by machines, it’s readable by bots, it has clear semantic structure, clear tags and titles, clear meta content, and all those same foundational improvements also improve accessibility. So, they both go hand in hand.

And I’m sure Sabir can link to an article on best practices on how to make your site accessible because those exact same foundational items also help with AI visibility.

Josh: Thank you, Tanuj. And we have a question. Does Shopify automatically set up an accessible checkout?

Tanuj: The answer is no. Yes. Most platforms are not inherently accessible. If you just do a quick Google, whether it’s Wick, Shopify, WordPress, or Squarespace. The problem is that these platforms are only giving you the tools to build your site. They’re not on the hook, or they’re not liable to make sure that whatever you build is accessible and doesn’t discriminate against people with disabilities. So at the end of the day, you’re on the hook to make sure that your site, your processes, and your workflows are accessible. And yeah, there’s no one really that you can shift that onus to.

So you have to, you know, ensure that ADA compliance and accessibility are infrastructure-level elements of your website. Oh.

Final Thoughts

And for our panelists, is there anything last that you would like to say before we wrap up today’s webinar? Well, since I’m a lawyer, I never like to skip an opportunity to have the last word, but I would just like to say that, you know, I think having a plan in place, using this in your business development as a checkbox, to always make sure you’re checking. People often ask me, like, you know, what kinds of companies is this happening to?

And I can say with certainty it’s happening across all sizes and sectors. You know, some of the main cases that have worked through the court systems have been small firms up to the mega, you know, businesses. And so it’s important that not only one aspect of a website is, but that the whole thing is, and to know that there are a lot of resources out there so that you’re not having to get bogged down or feel overwhelmed by it. But knowing that this can be done and that a checkbox can eliminate that risk. Thank you, Kelly.

Tanuj, do you have anything else you would love to share with your expertise?

Tanuj: No, I mean, again, the only thing that I would like to say is, you know, ADA compliance in general is not a topic that’s discussed enough. Most businesses, you know, get sent demand letters or get sued because they simply don’t know that ADA compliance applies to their business, right? It’s not just for physical businesses. It’s for any service-based businesses, online businesses, especially e-commerce businesses. So, not just you, but if you have friends and family who have businesses that have websites, spread the word. It only helps everybody when everyone is accessible.

Closing Remarks

Josh: Kelly and Tanuj, thank you so much for being on today’s webinar, and thank you so much to our guests and to everybody for being on this journey with us. I’m a big believer, and together we’re stronger, and together we’re not alone, and the more we can do together to support each other and to be a part of all of these journeys, we’re here. So thank you, everyone. Until next time, have a beautiful day and yeah, cheers to 2026.