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AI is replacing the search box. Could accessibility decide who gets found?

For more than 20 years, search engines have served as the primary gateway to the internet. Users entered keywords, algorithms ranked results, and businesses optimized their websites to appear near the top. examines how the rise of AI tools is beginning to redefine that entry point and reshape how people discover information online.

The shift is already visible in the data. Traffic to U.S. retail sites from AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity year over year by July 2025, according to Adobe Analytics. A Capgemini study conducted in October/November 2024 found that now rely on AI tools for product recommendations, rather than traditional search engines. And broader usage patterns continue to accelerate: ChatGPT adoption in the first half of 2025, with shopping-related queries doubling during that period, according to Bain & Company reports.

Meanwhile, people are completing more of their research directly within AI-generated results, a major departure from the classic “search, click, browse” pattern of the last two decades. Google AI overviews now appear in over , according to Xponent 21, fundamentally changing how information is consumed and how often users need to leave the search page.

For businesses that depend on traditional search visibility, these shifts represent a structural change. And they place new importance on something many organizations have historically underestimated: whether their websites are built in ways that AI systems can actually understand.

AEO and GEO: The New Rules of Discoverability

As AI tools begin interpreting and delivering more of the web's information, two concepts are emerging as essential to online visibility: answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO).

AEO and GEO focus on making information easy for AI systems to extract, interpret, and respond with. Clear headings, descriptive labeling, logical hierarchy, and consistent formatting all help AI understand the purpose and meaning of a page. Structural elements like semantic HTML, navigable layouts, well-formed links, and properly coded components matter more in an environment where models must summarize or recommend information rather than simply index it.

Together, AEO and GEO represent a shift from keyword-based optimization to comprehension-based optimization. It’s no longer enough for a page to contain relevant information. AI needs to understand that information well enough to paraphrase it, cite it, or recommend it.

This evolution puts renewed attention on the integrity of a website’s underlying structure. And that's where digital accessibility becomes a direct contributor to visibility.

Why Accessibility Is Becoming a Discoverability Issue

AI models read the web through its underlying code, and in many ways that process mirrors how screen readers navigate a page. They depend on clear hierarchy, descriptive labels, and consistent structure to understand what content means and how it’s organized. When a site lacks these cues, both AI systems and assistive technologies run into the same problem: They can’t reliably interpret the information. In an AI-driven discovery environment, that often means the model will lean toward sites with cleaner, more accessible architecture.

Those barriers are widespread too. The 2025 WebAIM Million found that nearly 95% of the top 1 million websites contain accessibility issues. AudioEye’s 2025 Digital Accessibility Index, which reviewed more than 15,000 sites across industries like retail, healthcare, education, and government, found an average of , ranging from missing alt text, unlabeled buttons, and structural gaps that disrupt navigation.

In a traditional SEO environment, a site with weak structure could still rank if it had strong backlinks or keyword relevance. In an AI-driven environment, structure and clarity are prerequisites. If an AI tool can't parse a page, there’s a chance that it won’t recommend it, even if the content itself is strong.

Ultimately, accessibility strengthens the structural integrity that modern discovery systems rely on. AI tools tend to surface the content they can interpret with the greatest confidence, and accessible sites provide that clarity through predictable architecture and well-formed code. As AI reshapes how people find information online, accessibility will play a central role in determining which websites are surfaced and which are overlooked.

What This Means For Businesses

The quiet truth behind AI-driven discovery is this: The web is being reranked not just by relevance, but by clarity. As AI replaces the search box, the winners won’t be the loudest brands or the most aggressively optimized pages. They’ll be the ones machines can actually understand.

Accessibility is becoming a competitive advantage that is often overlooked, yet it aligns perfectly with the modern discovery process. Pages built with clear structure, semantic meaning, and predictable navigation aren’t just easier for people using assistive technology to use. They’re easier for AI to trust, summarize, and recommend.

This is a moment of leverage for businesses willing to rethink how visibility is earned. Accessibility is an architectural decision that influences growth, reach, and resilience in an AI-first internet. AI systems reward predictability, and accessibility is one of the clearest ways to create it. Companies that invest now are effectively teaching the next generation of discovery engines how to talk about them.

The shift won’t happen overnight, but it is already underway. As AI systems increasingly decide what gets surfaced and what gets skipped, clarity becomes currency. Structure becomes strategy. And accessibility becomes the difference between being present in the future of the web, or quietly disappearing from it.

The organizations that embrace this won’t just be found more easily. They’ll help define what being findable means in the first place.

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