Emerging Trends in AI Plaintiff Litigation

AI litigation is emerging in several distinct waves. The earliest cases centered on copyright infringement during AI model training. Since then, plaintiffs have expanded into privacy and biometric claims, tort and product liability lawsuits, and cases involving child safety and deepfake harms.

Digital innovation and the law that follows it often, but not always, grows out of existing norms and law. Plaintiff side litigation against AI companies and AI products is shaping up to be similar. Just as intellectual property law evolved by drawing analogies from traditional property rights, plaintiffs are increasingly relying on familiar legal frameworks to address harms associated with AI systems.

Copyright Litigation: The First Wave of AI Cases

The earliest and most developed wave of AI litigation is rooted in copyright law. Plaintiffs brought these cases first because the infringing conduct occurred during the development and training of AI models, before the technology was widely deployed to consumers. Copyright cases were logically and temporally prior, high in statutory damages, and grounded in standard theories of copyright law but applied to new technology.

Plaintiffs generally allege established forms of infringement, including that AI developers engaged in unauthorized copying of copyrighted works during model training and that AI-generated outputs may reproduce protected expression. These cases raise central legal questions regarding the application of longstanding copyright doctrines, including fair use, and specific legal tests such as substantial similarity, to generative AI systems. Some cases include The New York Times v. OpenAI and Microsoft, Authors Guild v. OpenAI, Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Concord Music Group v. Anthropic, the infamous Bartz v. Anthropic, and more.

Privacy and Biometric Litigation Against AI Companies

Another collection of cases involves biometrics and privacy rights. This cohort tests whether the collection of training data, the creation of digital replicas, or the deployment of AI-generated representations of individuals can give rise to liability.

Claims in this area frequently involve allegations of scraping personal information from the internet, unauthorized collection and use of facial images to make AI models, voice cloning, covert collection and processing of user interactions, and violations of state biometric privacy laws. As AI systems increasingly rely on large-scale personal data collection, courts are being asked to determine the extent to which existing privacy protections apply to these technologies. Some cases include Carpenter v. McDonald's Corp, McGovern v. Amazon Web Services & Pindrop Security, Zaluda et al. v. Apple, Inc., and more.

Tort and Product Liability Claims Involving AI

While copyright and privacy harms may appear abstract or difficult for the public to conceptualize, a growing number of AI-related lawsuits involve direct and tangible injuries. These cases often rely on traditional tort and product liability theories, including negligent design, failure to warn, product defects, wrongful death, and foreseeable misuse.

These cases involve tragic stories where users or related parties engage in suicide or self-harm, drug use, individuals experience defamation or reputational, or end in homicide. Notably, many of these cases involve minors, raising additional questions about foreseeability, duty of care, and product safety. Examples include Garcia v. Character Technologies, Inc., P.J. v. Character Technologies, Inc., Carrier v. OpenAI, Montoya v. Character Technologies, Inc. and others.

Child Safety and Deepfake Litigation

A related but distinct category concerns child safety and AI-generated sexual exploitation. Although this area remains relatively underdeveloped compared to copyright or privacy litigation, it may become one of the most significant fronts in AI litigation.

For example, Morgan and Morgan has announced plans to pursue litigation against xAI arising from Grok's alleged generation of non-consensual sexualized images, called deepfakes, including images depicting minors. In addition, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein and Baehr-Jones Law have "filed a class action lawsuit in the Northern District of California against xAI on behalf of three victims whose real photographs were used to produce AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) through xAI’s Grok tool."

These cases raise complex questions regarding platform liability, foreseeability, content moderation obligations, and the intersection of AI technologies with existing laws governing child exploitation and non-consensual intimate imagery.

Looking Ahead: Where AI Litigation Is Headed Next

The trajectory of AI litigation suggests that courts are not inventing entirely new legal frameworks to address AI-related harms. Rather, litigants are adapting established doctrines to novel technologies. Copyright, privacy, tort, product liability, and child safety claims represent the earliest attempts to define the legal boundaries of AI deployment. As AI systems become increasingly integrated into daily life, the next phase of litigation will likely test the limits of consumer protection law, anti-discrimination statutes, and emerging state AI regulations.

For practitioners seeking to follow developments in this rapidly evolving field, some of the most comprehensive commentary comes from Professor Edward Lee of Santa Clara University School of Law, including his ongoing work through the publication ChatGPT Is Eating the World.

Staying Ahead of a Rapidly Evolving Area of Law

AI litigation is still taking shape, and the legal theories being tested today will likely define how courts handle AI-related harm for years to come. Whether you are tracking developments in this space or considering a claim involving AI, an attorney at Russell can help you understand where the law currently stands and what options may be available. Contact us to talk through your situation.