ADA, EU 2025, and Video Platforms: What Transcripts You Really Need to Stay Safe

ADA, EU 2025, and Video Platforms

What Transcripts You Actually Need to Stay Safe

If you publish videos or audio online, you sit in the overlap of three big worlds: accessibility law (like the ADA in the US), technical standards (like WCAG), and rapidly changing EU rules for 2025 and beyond.

The common thread in all of them: text alternatives for audio and video are no longer “nice-to-have.” Transcripts, captions, and sometimes audio description are now expected if your content is meant for the public.

This article focuses on a practical question:

For each type of video or audio on my platform, what text support do I actually need to reduce legal and accessibility risk?

We’ll keep it high-level and practical, not legalistic. This is general guidance, not legal advice.

TL;DR – What you need for each content type

For most organisations that care about ADA, WCAG, and upcoming EU 2025 accessibility rules:

• Pre-recorded video with speech
  → At minimum: closed captions. Strongly recommended: full transcript as well.

• Audio-only content (podcasts, audio messages, training audio)
  → At minimum: full transcript.

• Video with important on-screen visuals (demos, product UI, charts)
  → Captions plus either audio description or a descriptive transcript/summary.

• Live streams with speech (events, webinars)
  → Real-time captions during the event where feasible, and fully captioned recording + transcript afterwards.

• Internal but critical content (compliance training, HR, safety)
  → Treat like public, high-risk content: accurate captions and transcripts.

If disabled users rely on your video or audio to use your service or understand your product, the safest assumption is: you should provide captions and/or transcripts.

1. ADA, WCAG, and EU 2025 in plain language

Let’s unpack the three main pieces you’re dealing with:

ADA (primarily US)

• The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination based on disability.

• Courts and regulators increasingly treat websites, apps, and online content as part of a company’s “public accommodation” or service.

• In practice, many organizations follow WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) as the technical standard for ADA compliance, even though the ADA itself doesn’t name WCAG in its text.

For video and audio, ADA expectations essentially boil down to:

• Provide equal access to information for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, low-vision, or have cognitive or motor disabilities.

• That almost always implies captions, transcripts, and accessible players.

WCAG (currently 2.1 / 2.2)

WCAG is a global, technology-agnostic standard. The principle is:

Make content perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for people with disabilities.

For video and audio, WCAG success criteria say things like:

• Pre-recorded audio-only must have a transcript.

• Pre-recorded video with audio must have captions.

• Important visual information must have audio description or an equivalent text alternative.

• Media players must be accessible by keyboard and assistive technologies.

EU 2025 and beyond

In the EU, two main forces matter:

• The Web Accessibility Directive, which already applies to public-sector websites and apps.

• The European Accessibility Act (EAA), which from 2025 extends accessibility obligations to many private-sector services (e-commerce, banking, media, transport, etc.).

Both effectively lean on WCAG and related standards. If your product or service is aimed at EU consumers, assume that video and audio will need WCAG-style transcripts, captions, and accessible delivery.

2. Map your content: what are you actually publishing?

Before deciding what you “need,” identify what you have. On any video platform you use (YouTube, Vimeo, custom player, LMS, intranet), your content usually falls into these buckets:

1. Marketing videos

   • Product explainers, promos, testimonials, landing page videos.

2. Educational and training content

   • Courses, tutorials, onboarding, compliance training, internal academies.

3. Podcasts and audio shows

   • Audio-only episodes, audio diaries, internal audio newsletters.

4. Webinars and live events

   • Live webinars that later become on-demand replays.

5. Product UI demos and walkthroughs

   • Screen recordings, feature tours, dashboard demos.

6. Announcements and town halls

   • CEO updates, company meetings, public announcements.

Each category has different risk, but all are easier to manage with a simple, consistent rule about transcripts and captions.

3. What you need, by content type

A. Pre-recorded video with speech

Examples: Product videos, recorded webinars, training modules, customer stories.

What’s expected:

• Closed captions

  • Include all spoken dialogue.

  • Indicate meaningful sounds: [music], [applause], [laughter].

  • Synced closely with speech.

• Strongly recommended: a full transcript

  • Helps deaf users who prefer reading over watching.

  • Great for people who skim instead of watching long videos.

  • Excellent for search and SEO.

From an ADA/WCAG/EU perspective, having proper captions is the baseline, and having both captions and transcripts is the “sleep easy at night” option.

Minimum safe stance:
For all public or customer-facing pre-recorded videos, captions are non-negotiable, transcripts are best practice.

B. Audio-only content (podcasts, audio notes, recorded calls you publish)

Examples: Podcast episodes, audio briefings, audio content inside a course.

What’s expected:

• A complete transcript, available wherever the audio is playable.

  • Include speaker labels when needed.

  • Preserve important sounds that matter for understanding.

• Captions are irrelevant here because there’s no video—the transcript is the key.

From an accessibility perspective, without a transcript, a podcast is simply inaccessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing users. From a risk perspective, transcripts are the simplest and clearest requirement to meet.

Minimum safe stance:
If people can press “play” on audio-only content, they should also be able to read the full text.

C. Video with critical on-screen visuals

Examples: Product UI walkthroughs, charts and analytics, slide decks, design reviews.

Here, the problem isn’t only the audio. Much of the meaning is in what’s shown, not just what’s said.

What’s expected:

• Captions, as with any video with speech.

• Audio description or spoken description of important visuals, or:

• A detailed descriptive transcript or summary that explains what’s shown.

Good practice looks like this:

• While presenting a chart, the speaker actually describes it:
  “On this chart you can see revenue rising steadily from 2021 to 2024, with a noticeable spike in Q3.”

• For complex UI, there’s a text section that explains the key steps or states of the screen.

Minimum safe stance:
If a user can’t see the screen at all, they should still be able to understand the essential information from the audio + transcript.

D. Live streams and live webinars

Examples: Live product launches, live training, live town halls.

Live content is trickier, but expectations are evolving, especially for larger organizations and public-facing events.

What’s expected:

• Live captions (real-time) where reasonably possible, especially for:

  • Major events

  • Public sector or regulated industries

  • High-profile launches and announcements

• Recorded version with full captions and transcript made available afterwards.

Even if you can’t deliver perfect live captions today, recording the event and later publishing a fully accessible version is a big step in the right direction.

Minimum safe stance:
For significant live sessions, aim for live captions plus fully captioned and transcribed recordings. For smaller, internal live sessions, prioritise accessible recordings.

E. Internal but sensitive or high-impact content

Examples: Compliance training, HR policies, health and safety training, security modules.

Even when content is “internal,” it can still have:

• Legal implications (e.g., proof of training).

• Access needs for employees with disabilities.

• Important operational impact.

Safest approach:

• Treat these videos like public, high-stakes content.

• Provide accurate captions and transcripts, especially if they’re mandatory trainings or part of your compliance story.

This is one of the most common areas where organisations get caught out: they caption their marketing videos but forget the training that employees actually rely on.

4. Simple decision matrix: What do I actually need?

Use this quick reference:

It’s intentionally conservative. If you follow this, you’re moving clearly in the direction of ADA, WCAG, and EU expectations.

5. Extra risk factors: when you can’t cut corners

Even if a video seems “minor,” certain signals push it into “don’t risk it” territory:

• The content explains how to use your product or service.

• The content is part of a regulated industry (finance, health, government, transport, education).

• Failure to understand it could affect someone’s rights, money, health, or safety.

• The content is highly visible (home page video, main product tour, investor content).

When any of those are true, skipping captions or transcripts becomes much riskier, regardless of whether a specific law or guideline explicitly names your exact scenario.

6. How to implement this without drowning in work

You don’t have to fix your entire back catalogue overnight. A realistic approach:

1. Set your default rules

   • “All new public videos get captions by default.”

   • “Anything with speech that reaches EU or US audiences must have a transcript.”

2. Prioritise your top 10–20 assets

   • Highest traffic pages

   • Most important product videos

   • Key podcasts or webinars

3. Use a hybrid workflow

   • AI generates first draft captions/transcripts.

   • Humans review and correct for accuracy, names, numbers, and timing.

4. Bake it into your publishing checklist

   • No video goes live until captions are attached.

   • No podcast goes live until transcripts are attached.

   • Live events are recorded and scheduled for post-event captioning.

5. Review your video platform configuration

   • Ensure caption toggles are visible.

   • Players are keyboard accessible.

   • Captions are easy to find and activate.

Once the process is in place, maintaining accessibility becomes much easier than doing ad-hoc “fixes” later.

7. Final disclaimer

This article gives you a practical, risk-aware view of transcripts, captions, and descriptions under the ADA, WCAG, and EU 2025 context. It is not legal advice. Exact obligations can vary by jurisdiction, sector, and your specific role (public sector, private, microenterprise, etc.).

When in doubt, combine this guidance with advice from accessibility specialists and legal counsel.