From immigration disputes to copyright claims, where AI is being tested first
Canadian Lawyer magazine has been at the forefront of reporting on the rise of AI in law: how industry leaders are employing AI, AI’s role in training new lawyers, its risk of further dividing legal expertise, breaking regulation updates, and much more, following the outwardly limitless influence of this game-changing technology.
New data from Canadian Lawyer magazine shows that federal institutions were the earliest and most concentrated forums for AI-related litigation. As reflected in federal case distribution charts, the Immigration and Refugee Board and the Federal Court together accounted for a near-majority of AI-related decisions in 2022 and 2023.
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’s national trendline shows how quickly the issue has developed. AI-related decisions more than doubled between 2021 and 2024, with further growth in 2025. At the federal level, that increase has been driven in large part by immigration and administrative law proceedings.
In those cases, AI most often appears in disputes over identity, surveillance, and decision-making tools. As explored in the report’s case analysis, tribunals have been asked to consider facial recognition systems and automated processes, but have consistently required clear, verifiable evidence of how those systems operate.
Decisions in Canada's Federal Court reflect a similar approach. Canadian Lawyer’s report highlights a recurring theme: automated tools cannot displace human accountability. Courts have emphasized transparency, reviewability, and procedural fairness where AI is alleged to have played a role.
By tracing references to the terms machine learning, facial recognition, automated decision-making, and autonomous vehicles across all published legal decisions, the report 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, who 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.
