Microsoft Edge accessibility features to usher in good news, now the browser can automatically generate image tags, which means that screen readers can describe the content of images, even if these images do not contain alt text. This is a very helpful feature for blind or other visually impaired users who want to know the content of the picture but cannot see it.
Microsoft also pointed out that these auto-generated tags are still not as good as the alt text provided by the page author himself, because the author may know more specific content about the image, and the information that Edge can provide is definitely inaccurate. Still, considering that “more than half of images processed by screen readers lack alt text,” Microsoft believes this solution helps.
The feature is powered by Azure Cognitive Services and is currently available to Edge users on Windows, Linux, and Mac, not including Android and iOS. As for how users can enable these auto-generated labels, go to Edge://Settings/Accessibility and find the “get image descriptions from Microsoft for screen readers” setting.