Letting a customer-facing AI chatbot quote your own policies
If your bot promises it, you bought it. "The AI said so" is not a defence, it is a confession.
Not legal advice. Sally roasts behaviour and use-cases in general, never your specific situation, and nothing here replaces a real lawyer. The cases are real; what you do about them is between you and someone licensed to tell you.
Putting an AI chatbot on your site to answer policy and refund questions, and trusting whatever it tells customers.
Moffatt v. Air Canada
2024 BCCRT 149 (B.C. Civil Resolution Tribunal) · Canada (British Columbia)
Air Canada's website chatbot told a grieving customer he could claim a bereavement discount retroactively. The airline's actual policy did not allow that, and it argued the chatbot was a separate legal entity.
The tribunal held Air Canada liable for negligent misrepresentation, rejected the "separate entity" argument, and awarded the customer CA$650.88.
A company tried to argue in a real tribunal that its website chatbot was a separate legal entity responsible for its own words. The tribunal did not laugh, but it was close. Your bot is you. Everything it says is a representation your business made.
An AI that confidently invents a refund policy you do not actually offer is not a quirky helper. It is a liability machine generating promises you are then on the hook to honour.
“You deployed a robot to speak for your company, then acted shocked when a court treated it like it was speaking for your company.”
- 01Constrain the bot to retrieve from your real, current policy text, and make it link to that page rather than paraphrase it.
- 02Put a human review step on anything that touches money, eligibility, or a legal entitlement.
- 03Log what the bot tells people. If you would not put it in writing on letterhead, it should not say it either.
Not legal advice. General commentary on a use-case, not your situation. Talk to a real lawyer before you act.