PR Using AI to Improve Web Accessibility

As part of its ongoing effort to help the college meet online accessibility requirements, the PR office recently implemented AltText.ai, a tool that uses artificial intelligence to generate alternative text—usually called “alt text”—for website images. Alternative text benefits visually impaired users by describing the contents of graphic files in words. Alt text also improves search engine optimization—commonly called SEO—and is mandated by federal law.

Last week, AltText.ai processed 7,500 images on the college website and inputted alt text for all of them. This saved hours of otherwise manual work.

Going forward, AltText.ai will automatically write alt text for every newly uploaded image. Besides contributing to accessibility, this will give our pages higher visibility to search engines.