Accessiway launches accessibility platform as EU rules bite

Accessiway has launched a digital accessibility platform for businesses covered by the European Accessibility Act. It is aimed at organisations managing websites, apps and other customer-facing digital services in EU markets.

The platform is intended to replace periodic accessibility audits with continuous monitoring and issue management. It provides digital managers, compliance teams and developers with a live dashboard showing accessibility issues across digital touchpoints, where they appear and how they are being addressed.

The launch comes as businesses selling into the European Union face closer scrutiny over whether their digital services are usable by people with disabilities. The rules apply to companies operating in EU countries regardless of where they are headquartered, creating potential exposure for firms in the UK and other regions that trade into the bloc.

Retail focus

Accessiway highlighted retail in particular, where accessibility failures remain widespread. It cited the 2026 WebAIM Million report, which found that shopping sites had the weakest accessibility scores of any website category, averaging 71 errors per page.

The same report found that 95.9% of the world's most visited homepages contained detectable accessibility failures. That marked a reversal after several years of gradual improvement and added to concerns that growing website complexity and the wider use of AI coding tools are introducing more accessibility problems into digital products.

Many organisations still manage accessibility through a repeated process of commissioning an audit, receiving a report and then transferring issues into internal tracking systems. Accessiway's platform is designed to bring that work into existing software development processes by linking findings directly into Jira through a two-way integration.

Each issue identified through expert audit is accompanied by technical context and guidance. Compliance levels are updated as problems are resolved, giving teams a current picture rather than a fixed assessment captured at a single point in time.

Amit Borsok, chief executive officer and co-founder of Accessiway, said the company built the platform in response to the pace of modern software development. "We built this platform because the problem has changed. The audit cycle was designed for a world where digital products changed slowly. That world no longer exists. Development teams can now ship updates in hours; accessibility processes are still running on an annual calendar. The gap between those two things is where risk accumulates and where users encounter barriers. This platform is designed to close it," he said.

Compliance pressure

The European Accessibility Act has increased pressure on companies to treat digital accessibility as an operational issue rather than a periodic compliance exercise. For online retailers and other digital service providers, accessibility is no longer optional in the markets covered by the rules.

That matters beyond the EU's borders because many non-EU businesses still serve customers in member states. The Republic of Ireland also brings the issue within scope for many companies operating across the UK and Ireland, while the EU remains the UK's biggest trading partner.

Accessiway argues that legal compliance is only part of the issue. Accessible digital services are also necessary because many people with disabilities rely on online access to buy goods and use services that can be difficult to reach in person.

Company reach

The platform is being rolled out across Accessiway's existing customer base and included in new service packages. The business supports more than 2,000 organisations in about 20 countries, including companies in finance, retail, the public sector, education and technology.

Its operations span several European markets, with offices in Paris, Hamburg, Vienna and Turin. Existing customers will move to the new system as their renewals come up.

Founded in 2021, Accessiway joined digital services group team.blue in 2024. It says it employs more than 140 specialists and combines automated tools with expert-led audits to help clients meet standards including WCAG 2.2 and the European Accessibility Act.

The wider market backdrop suggests the problem Accessiway is targeting is unlikely to fade quickly. The company cited a survey of more than 49,000 developers in 177 countries that found 84% use or plan to use AI tools, while more than half use them daily, even as trust in AI-generated output remains mixed.

As software teams produce and update code faster, accessibility checks risk falling behind unless they are embedded in day-to-day development work. Accessiway is betting that companies facing legal and commercial pressure will prefer a system that tracks accessibility continuously rather than one that relies on a report that may be outdated soon after it is delivered.