AI-first company

Company case

accessiBe: an AI plug-in sold as making any website accessible, and a $1 million order

accessiBe sold website owners an AI plug-in and said it would make any site meet accessibility standards. The US consumer regulator said it did not, and that reviews praising it were paid for. The company paid $1 million.

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Outcome Went wrong

Something failed in work where AI was used, and there is a public record of it.

In the guide Tools and systems by size

At a glance

Company
accessiBeSoftware vendor: website accessibility plug-in
Size
Not stated in the source
Industry
E-commerce and retail, Agencies The buyers were website owners, among them online shops and the agencies that build their sites.
Where and when
United States. Complaint January 2025, order final April 2025.
Who produced the figures
Official recordEverything on this page comes from two announcements by the US Federal Trade Commission. These are the regulator’s allegations, settled by agreement.

What happened

accessiBe sells a plug-in called accessWidget. A website owner adds it to a site, and it uses AI to adjust the site for people with disabilities.

The company said the plug-in could make any website comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These are the international technical standard for websites that people with disabilities can use. It made the claim on its own site, on social media and in articles on other sites.

What the regulator said

  • The claim was not true for all sites. The plug-in did not make every customer’s website meet the standard.
  • The reviews were not independent. The company paid for articles and reviews, had them presented as the opinions of impartial authors, and did not disclose the connection.

The outcome

  • $1 million paid to the regulator, which may be used for refunds.
  • No more blanket claims. The company may not say an automated product makes any website compliant, or keeps it compliant, unless it has evidence.
  • No disguised advertising. It may not present paid reviews as independent, and must disclose its links to anyone who endorses its products.

The order was made final on 22 April 2025.

What the case shows

  • “Install it and you comply” deserves a second look. The buyer stays responsible for its own website, whatever the plug-in’s seller says.
  • Check where a review comes from. Some of the praise a buyer could find online had been paid for.
  • Test the result, not the promise. An accessibility check of the site after installing the plug-in would have shown what it did and did not fix.

What this says about the practices

Practices that were missing

Sources

  1. US Federal Trade Commission (3 January 2025). FTC order requires online marketer to pay $1 million for deceptive claims that its AI product could make websites compliant with accessibility guidelines. Press release. ftc.gov
  2. US Federal Trade Commission (22 April 2025). FTC approves final order requiring accessiBe to pay $1 million. Press release. ftc.gov