A key learning in my role over the years around systems is that organizations move when accessibility aligns with incentives they already understand; speed, cost, risk, revenue, etc. You know when they don’t move? When they’re morally scolded or operationally burdened.

Throughout the beginning of Stark, we’ve been approached by companies looking for a “compliance-as-a-service” offering as part of adopting Stark where our team would help with time-boxed tasks in areas their (the potential customer) team is not skilled enough. It led to us creating a robust onboarding process which helped upskill customers in order to effectively implement Stark. Why not just point them to consultants?

Well, our view on consultancy is nuanced.

We fundamentally believe accessibility, and the compliance attached to it can be agentically automated, should be automated (within its own limits purely based on the limitations of tech currently), and that the space can shift in non-incremental ways with tremendous positive impact because of it. And that’s exactly why we’re doing so.

Much like many other spaces in the tech industry, we’re witnessing a pivotal shift in how companies approach accessibility compliance—one that moves away from traditional consultancies and towards software-first solutions. And that’s more than just a trend; it’s a fundamental change in how organizations achieve sustainable accessibility with mature programs at the helm. The old way of thinking: manual-heavy processes and sticker sheets, solely relying on consulting services that take a long time to get feedback in a spreadsheet or needing to share your IP (only for you to have shipped multiple times since), was effective for its time.

Like all legacy systems though: it has its limits, and a lifecycle.

What companies need isn’t outsourced manual solutions; they need a software solution that reduces the manual burden and enhances efficiency. They need to upskill their product teams, not just outsource the problem. That’s exactly why we focus on workshops and training to empower teams during enterprise onboarding, and continually create educational content to support this effort contextually in the tools our customers know and love.

At Stark we’ve envisioned and are executing on a solution that lifts accessibility to the next level. One that scales at the speed of modern software development and accelerates time to compliance by 10x while reducing cost by up to 100x.

What’s changed dramatically since we first made this argument is the velocity of software itself. With AI now generating, modifying, and shipping large portions of production code, design artifacts, and content, the pace of change has increased by an order of magnitude. In many organizations, the majority of what ships in a six-month window simply did not exist at the start of that same period.

In that environment, waiting weeks—or even days—for a consultant-delivered audit is no longer just inefficient, it’s irrelevant. By the time feedback arrives, teams have already shipped again. And again. The surface area has changed, the risk profile has shifted, and whatever snapshot was captured is already out of date.

This is the moment where the old model breaks entirely. Accessibility can’t be something you check after the fact when “the fact” is constantly moving. It has to live inside the systems that create software in the first place.

Stark is already delivering significant ROI by reducing the resource hours spent on accessibility. For example: rather than outsourcing tasks like VPAT completion, we’re automating as much of the process as possible — from VPAT and integrations that speed up your workflow, to the sense making that connects those dots to governance.

The approach we take helps companies create a higher quality product, save time, resources, and achieve compliance more efficiently. More importantly it communicates to the EPD teams in orgs how their decisions impact humans on the other side of the screen.

However, something we’ve come to realize, in observing how over 60,000 companies use Stark, is that this shift requires more than just new tools.

Organizations need to evolve their strategy, culture, and processes as it relates to accessibility so that it can keep up with rapid speed of technology deployment and user needs of our connected world.

Getting organizations to effectively shift takes time…and love. We realized in order to do so, we can’t shove the elephants, we needed to wave peanuts in front of them—enticing them to move knowing there’s a delicious reward waiting for them. In this case, peanuts are dollars for the company (be it earning money from many more happy customers, and saving money from not losing out on deals or regulatory fines).

Privacy and security in organizations saw the same challenges. However, this kind of transformation is slow and requires both patience and persistence.

As Buckminster Fuller once said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Now, that doesn’t make consultancies obsolete per-se, but it puts them where they work best for education, auditing, or planning of a company’s transformational journey.

So, rather than pushing against old systems and expecting them to budge, our Stark solution leverages existing workflows and tool stacks to provide the backbone for automated transformation with extreme efficiency and for the measurable benefit of both business and end users. Continuously.

Let me be clear about something important though: we’re not blaming the past. The traditional consulting model worked for its time, just as horses once made sense as a primary mode of transportation. And just as the world evolved to cars and then to autonomous vehicles, accessibility compliance is evolving, too.

The old system is expensive, cumbersome, and ultimately didn’t solve the underlying issues. Now, the present shows us that this approach can no longer sustain itself, and the future lies in automation and self-sufficiency—meaning consultancies are meant to support alongside software, and also rendering solutions like overlays largely obsolete.

Having said that, we understand that consultation isn’t going away as an option. Consultant offerings from Stark are something we’re exploring on our roadmap for 2026 through partnerships with experts and leading consultancies who actively use and believe in the Stark approach. And as with anyone on our team, they’re people that can spin circles around the best of the best in the industry.

The future of accessibility is clear. Accessibility cannot scale without being a first-class governable part of product development so it’s measurable, repeatable, and resilient. And governance cannot exist without a system of record.

Which is why Stark is leading this shift and building the Accessibility GRC System of Record—one that connects policy to practice, and intention to execution. A system that reflects reality as products evolve, code ships, designs change, and teams grow. Accessibility isn’t a static checkbox; it’s a moving surface area across design, development, content, and operations. Treating it as anything less is why so many efforts stall, regress, or quietly fall apart.

The goal isn’t to replace people or expertise. It’s to make the right decisions easier, the impact clearer, and the old way of doing things unnecessary by design. Automation where automation is appropriate. With human oversight. Education that meets teams where they already work. Empowering organizations with the context and clarity they need to make better decisions over time.

The past had its place, but we can’t go back. It’s too expensive, too fragile, and too disconnected from how modern software is actually built.

Real change doesn’t happen because organizations are told they should move. It happens when the path forward aligns with how companies actually operate — what the people within it value, fear, and make progress feel attainable rather than overwhelming for them. And as a whole? How teams are incentivized, and how decisions get made up and down the management chain.

With those 60,000 companies using Stark that I mentioned earlier? We paid attention to the signals from all of them. We saw where the accessibility market was headed long before it was operationally realistic for most teams, and we built what would be needed for them to succeed when that moment arrived.

Stark is a pure software service, monitoring accessibility across your entire software development lifecycle—from the first design draft through code, all the way to production with the ability to tie that reality back to governance in a meaningful way. That end-to-end visibility is what makes an Accessibility GRC System of Record possible in the first place. Right now with Stark.

Now we know not everything can or should be automated, and manual evidence is still so important! Which is why we’re bringing you the ability to upload manual audits and other evidence in your Evidence Library (oh yeah – that’s coming, too!).

By meeting teams where they already work, by reducing friction instead of adding to it, and by tying accessibility directly to outcomes businesses already care about (what makes and saves them money), we made progress not just possible but practical. That’s how accessibility became more realistic, more sustainable, and more achievable at scale. Not through force, but through alignment. Not by pushing harder for perfection, but by offering the right incentives at the right moment that are rooted in operational reality.

After all, nobody moves an elephant by shoving it, but you cause a stampede of excitement with a delicious sweet treat.

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