CL Talk

Professor Maura Grossman on how courts can confront AI-generated evidence

Mar 17, 2026

In this episode, Canadian Lawyer managing editor Tim Wilbur sits down with Professor Maura Grossman of the University of Waterloo and Osgoode Hall Law School to examine how artificial intelligence is reshaping the law of evidence. Grossman traces her path from early work using supervised machine learning to sift “millions and millions of emails” in e-discovery to today’s challenge of judges facing synthetic media that looks real but may be entirely fabricated, she says. She explains her distinction between acknowledged AI-generated material, where all parties agree a system was used, and unacknowledged content, where parties dispute whether a video or recording is genuine at all. Drawing on recent cases involving enhanced video, digital avatars and virtual reconstructions, Grossman argues that courts are being forced to make high-stakes calls without the tools they need. She then outlines a new AI safety solution network she is co-directing, backed by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, which aims to build a free, open-source framework to help everyone from family judges to self-represented litigants assess when images, recordings and documents may have been manipulated, and she closes with practical advice for lawyers and judges on adopting a more skeptical approach to digital evidence.