[Ed. note: this is my last newsletter of the year. Thank you for reading and supporting Lawyer Ex Machina, and I anticipate returning in late January 2026. Have a joyous holiday season and Happy New Year!]

AI

• From the Cybersecurity Law Report: “Gen AI Chats Becoming Evidence: Law Enforcement Warrants and Subpoenas”

• Related: AI prompts as evidence - what are we really seeing?

• Last week, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the GUARD Act, which would require developers of AI chatbots to verify the ages of all users and ban minors from using AI companions [Congress.gov | Time]

• Related: OpenAI has filed a ballot initiative in California to regulate AI chatbots, that may end up on the same ballot as a competing initiative promoted by the CEO of Common Sense Media [Politico | Initiative text]

• The Tow Center for Digital Journalism, part of the Columbia School of Journalism, has launched a tracker for AI deals and lawsuits, specifically between AI companies and news publishers

• Disney is investing US$1 billion in OpenAI, with warrants to buy additional shares, and licenses over 200 Disney-owned characters to be used in in OpenAI’s video generator, Sora [Variety | eWeek | Disney press release]

• Legal research platform Fastcase, which has been acquired by Clio, is suing legal AI platform Alexi over a licensing deal between them [Reuters | LawSites | Docket | Complaint]

• From Judge Scott Schlegel: The Silent Counsel: When AI Glasses Walk Into Court

Fabrication Follies

• The Doc App, Inc. v. Leafwell, Inc. [Law360 ($) | Docket | Order | Motion for Reconsideration]

• Moore v. City of Del City (OK) [NonDoc article | Order and Judgment]

Long Reads

• Lin, H., Czarnek, G., Lewis, B. et al. Persuading voters using human–artificial intelligence dialogues. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09771-9 [Summary by 404 Media ($)]

• Argyle, L.P., Political persuasion by artificial intelligence, Science 390,983-984(2025).DOI:10.1126/science.aec9293 [Summary by 404 Media ($)]

• Martineau, A. and Turner, L., Legal Scholarship Through the Lens of Generative AI, Darkly, 117 Law Libr. J. 232 (2025), available at https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/faculty_articles/1112

• Wongchamcharoen, P.K. and Glasserman, P., Do Large Language Models (LLMs) Understand Chronology? (2025) arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.14214