AI Code Generation

The use of large language models and machine learning to automatically generate, suggest, or complete source code based on natural language prompts or existing code context. Tools like GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, and Amazon CodeWhisperer are integrated into developer workflows as IDE plugins. In accessibility contexts, AI code generation presents a double-edged sword: these tools can nudge developers toward accessible patterns (such as adding alt attributes to images) but also systematically reproduce accessibility failures from their training data. Research shows that code generation models have not yet exceeded the accessibility standards set by human developers and may hallucinate inaccessible elements when working with non-compliant codebases.