Patrol is a team of passionate builders based in Boston with the goal of making the internet more accessible and protecting the entrepreneurial dream for ecommerce merchants. We set out to fundamentally shift merchants' relationship with accessibility and ADA compliance. Our product automates previously manual accessibility best practices via multi-agentic workflows and generative AI. But let's take a step back - why are we building Patrol?
The Current Problem: A Lose-Lose Situation
Right now, accessibility + ADA compliance for merchants and people living with disabilities is a lose-lose.
For Shopify Merchants
There were around 10,000 digital ADA lawsuits + demand letters against merchants with an average settlement amount of $14,000. These lawsuits are often driven by what the industry calls, "Ambulance Chasers" - law firms that look to exploit small businesses for lack of accessibility and ADA compliance.
Merchants are then saddled with deciding between two sub-par choices:
- Cheap overlay widget (only solves 20-30% of violations)
- Costly professional services
Another lose-lose.
For People Living with Disabilities
For people living with disabilities that use assistive technology to navigate the web, online shopping is a never ending frustration. Today, over 96% of websites homepages fail ADA compliance testing. That essentially means that people living with disabilities cannot easily navigate or shop on over 96% of websites.
I think everyone can agree that is absurd and should change.