Digital Explainer – the AI developments so far in 2026

2026 has again seen lots of news linked to AI, especially in the legal community.  In this Keynote, Technology partners James Tumbridge and Robert Peake round up some of the most significant developments this year so far.

The end of 2025 and beginning of 2026 saw developments in the realm of copyright as it pertains to AI. In England in December 2025, Mrs Justice Joanna Smith DBE granted permission for Getty Images to appeal her judgment, which dismissed Getty’s copyright infringement claims against Stability AI. The opportunity for the Court of Appeal to guide the world and the UK on the correct understanding of copyright and AI is very significant; it is rare for a first instance judge to give permission to appeal, and so the decision appears to be a recognition of the importance of copyright law in the rapidly progressing field of AI. The appeal will be closely watched by all of those concerned with copyright and AI.

March

The US Supreme Court declined to hear a case which would have provided guidance on AI authorship in copyright works. The appeal was from Thaler v. Perlmutter, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia determined that the Copyright Office correctly denied Dr. Stephen Thaler’s copyright claim for an AI-created picture titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise.”Dr. Thaler sought recognition of AI authorship based on his generative AI tool named the “Creativity Machine,” which created a picture on its own. In his appeal, Dr. Thaler wanted the justices to consider whether “works outputted by an AI system without a direct, traditional authorial contribution by a natural person could be copyrighted.” A question still to be answered.

April

The Chancellor of the High Court (Sir Colin Birss LJ – soon to be the Master of the Rolls) gave a speech on AI. Sir Colin helpfully set the scene on what makes machine learning/AI so different. He said there are two central features:

“The first is that we now have machines which at least appear to operate on the basis that they understand English. That is new and significant. … The second is that unlike traditional computers, the way these systems appear to operate is probabilistic. … My point is that they will not answer the same question in the same way every time. There is a degree of variation. One cannot fully predict, in advance, what the machine will say or do in response to a given set of circumstances.”

This recognition goes to the heart of the hallucination risk, and it shows judges understand it. In the legal community around the world, we have heard of AI hallucinations, where someone asks AI for help and it provides a made-up case authority. This troubling trend has caused negative comments from many courts and tribunals and has led to guidance as outlined here.

In an immigration case in November 2025 (but only made public in March), a UK tribunal said there is also a risk of losing legal professional privilege if you use AI. This is a very serious concern and needs to be understood. Read more about it here.

May

It was unsurprising that all the AI news stories of lawyers using AI without proper review led to more guidance. The Bar Council updated its guidance in May on the use of AI systems; it warns against placing client documents into “open source” AI tools, and consequently, “into the public domain”.

June

In Germany, a court in Munich held Google liable for defamatory statements created from an AI summary. Liability was found because the Google AI Overview formulates an answer and does not merely provide a list of links. The Court concluded that it is not unreasonable to require Google to review each AI summary before delivering it to the user, at least by automatically verifying whether the statements in the summary are supported by the links.

In the UK, summer began with a warning from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which published its views and report on AI and automated decision-making in recruitment. This flows from its AI and biometrics strategy, published in June 2025. The ICO raised concerns that people are using solely automated systems without meaningful human involvement, saying:

“The decisions these systems take have legal or similarly significant effects on people. This places these decisions within the scope of the provisions on solely automated decision-making in the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). For this reason, a greater range of safeguards will need to apply than our evidence suggests are currently in place.”

July

The Criminal Division of the England & Wales Court of Appeal outlined its concerns for AI coaching witnesses. In Rex v FGD, the Court allowed the prosecution appeal against Recorder Hay’s ruling part-way through a rape trial at Lewes Crown Court. The ruling stayed proceedings after the complainant was found to have used AI to help prepare for court. The Court of Appeal called for the Criminal Procedure Rule Committee, prosecutors and police chiefs to “address and regulate the use of AI in criminal proceedings”. Trust in AI is what government wants to see, and alongside all these legal cases the direction since the autumn of 2025 is certified pathways for establishing that trust.  In 2025, the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (which has since been dissolved by the current government) published its “Trusted Third Party AI Assurance Roadmap” and the International Corporate Governance Network has engaged with the White House on similar themes. Many courses are now available on AI certification from the English Law Society, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment, the British Computer Society, the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries, and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

On 27 July, the EU Digital Omnibus on Artificial Intelligence came into force, with the aim of simplifying digital regulation across the EU and delaying the application of some provisions of the AI Act. The EU AI Office will have expanded powers, and SMEs will benefit from simplified compliance record keeping measures. The time for designation of national AI authorities has been pushed back – a recognition that some member states had failed to make progress on the original timelines.

August

Whilst there had been calls to delay the AI Act’s transparency obligations, they are effective from 2 August 2026. Organisations in scope of the AI Act’s labelling requirements will now need to prepare for the 2 December 2026 deadline to implement content marking for deepfakes and AI written text on matters of public interest which is not subject to human review. Obligations for high-risk AI systems listed in Annex III of the AI Act, including those used in education and employment, have been delayed until 2 December 2027.

If you have questions or concerns about AI, please contact James Tumbridge and Robert Peake.