New report shows how courts are adapting existing doctrines to new technology
Artificial intelligence has been framed as a legal disruption. In practice, Canadian courts are approaching it through time-tested principles – for better or worse.
Canadian Lawyer magazine’s latest report shows that AI-related litigation is being resolved largely through existing legal frameworks, particularly in privacy, intellectual property, and administrative law. As illustrated in the report’s national trendline, the number of AI-related decisions has grown rapidly since 2021, with further increases expected.
Canadian Lawyer magazine is pleased to promote its two-part “AI on Trail” report featuring court decisions related to AI at the federal and provincial level: a catalogue of major cases in which AI is mentioned or contested, along with the key trends they reveal, across every federal and provincial court and tribunal included on the Canadian Legal Information Institute, between the first quarter of 2021 and the second quarter of 2025.
The report combines this data with expert analysis from leading Canadian scholars. Their commentary highlights a consistent pattern: Canada has historically taken an incremental approach to new technology, extending established practices rather than creating entirely new ones.
That approach is visible throughout the case law. Courts are applying concepts such as consent, reasonableness, and procedural fairness to technologies including facial recognition and automated decision-making. As shown in the report’s analysis, AI is being integrated into legal reasoning without fundamentally altering the structure of existing law, at least for now.
At the same time, the report identifies growing pressure on that model. The scale and speed of AI development, reflected also in the rising number of related legal decisions, are testing the limits of incremental adaptation. Canadian legislative efforts have begun, but remain incomplete, leaving courts and tribunals to address many issues directly.
The result, as the report shows, is a developing body of jurisprudence shaped simultaneously by data, doctrine, and practical necessity.
By tracing references to the terms machine learning, facial recognition, automated decision-making, and autonomous vehicles across all published legal decisions, the project provides the most comprehensive account of how Canadian courts and tribunals are engaging with and judging on AI, based on an analysis of 388 cases across 77 Canadian courts and tribunals.
Canadian Lawyer magazine’s full-length report sets the numbers in context with expert commentary, including interviews with leading Canadian legal and AI scholars: Dr. Teresa Scassa, Dr. Pina D’Agostino, Professor Amy Salyzyn, and Professor Samuel Dahan examine how AI and large language models have reshaped legal reasoning and practice in months past and years ahead.
See the full report here: the most detailed view of AI in Canadian case law to date, and essential intelligence for every lawyer navigating the fast-evolving intersections of AI and Canadian law.
See the full report here: the most detailed view of AI in Canadian case law to date, and essential intelligence for every lawyer navigating the fast-evolving intersections of AI and Canadian law.
