how it happened
- whocustomerasked about bereavement fares
- the gapwebsite chatbotinvented a refund policy
- the resulttribunal rulingairline liable for the bot
what everyone assumed
A chatbot feels like a helper bolted onto the site, a convenience that points to the real answers rather than being one. The assumption, when it fails, is that a company is not bound by whatever its bot happens to say.
what happened
The airline argued in a tribunal that the chatbot was, in effect, a separate entity responsible for its own statements. The tribunal disagreed, holding that the company was responsible for all information on its website, the bot’s words included, and that the customer had reasonably relied on them.
step by step
- the website chatbot answers a fare questionThe customer relies on what it says.
- the airline refuses to honour the answerIt argues the chatbot is a separate entity responsible for its own words.the assumption breaks here
- February 2024the tribunal rules for the customerThe company is responsible for everything on its website, bot included. Damages for negligent misrepresentation.
how it surfaced
In February 2024 the British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal ruled against Air Canada in Moffatt v. Air Canada, awarding damages for negligent misrepresentation. It was an early ruling holding a company liable for its AI chatbot’s output.
A chatbot speaks for the company that deploys it.
Its confident wrong answer is the company’s confident wrong answer, with the company’s liability attached.
picture it at a company like yours
The company here is made up. The other two paths are not: they happened, and each links to the story.
- in this storythe day it mattersIt tells a customer they qualify for a refund your policy does not offer, and the customer saves the chat.what it costs youA court or regulator treats the bot's words as yours, and you pay what it promised.
- or it goes like thisit happenedDPD chatbot, 2024howA bot is talked into mocking your company and the chat is shared.what leavesyour reputation, in screenshotswho ends up with ita million strangers in a day
- or it goes like thisit happenedMata v. Avianca, 2023howAI-drafted work cites sources that do not exist.what leavescredibility and, in court, sanctionswho ends up with itthe judge and the other side
sources
your turn
what you can do about it
this week
Read what your customer-facing bot is allowed to promise, and who signed off on it.
If you have put an AI assistant in front of customers, it is making statements in your name right now, some of them wrong with total confidence. Air Canada is the precedent that those statements are yours. What your bot can say, and whether anyone has bounded it, is a question with a legal edge.
go deeper
if you're not sure where to start
Run the offboarding checklist on one leaver. It covers every account and token to close when someone leaves.
open the checklist →