UKJT publishes Legal Statement on Liability for AI Harms

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On 7 July 2026, the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce published its Legal Statement on Liability for AI Harms – an attempt to provide legal certainty and predictability as to how the law of England & Wales may respond where use of AI causes unintended harm. The Statement demonstrates that while the challenges posed by AI may be new, longstanding principles of English law are flexible enough to adapt to meet them.

What is the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce?

In its own words, the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT) is an industry-led initiative, tasked with promoting the use of English law and the UK’s legal jurisdictions for technology and digital innovation. Its purpose is to clarify the legal status of, and legal principles applicable to, emerging technologies under English law, and its Legal Statements aim to provide the best possible answers to critical legal questions in developing areas. UKJT has issued previous Legal Statements on topics including Cryptoassets and Smart Contracts; and Digital Assets and English Insolvency law.

The UKJT’s work often emphasises the inherent flexibility of the English common law legal system, which enables it to respond and adapt to technological change. The countervailing challenge of a common law system though is that cases being tested in court naturally lag behind the pace of that technological change, and uncertainty as to legal principles may itself act as a brake on development. UKJT’s Legal Statements therefore serve to probe how existing law might react to new challenges, and provide some certainty in the meantime.

Why does AI give rise to legal uncertainty?

For the purpose of its Statement, UKJT defines AI as “a technology that is autonomous”. It is this autonomous nature that gives rise to legal uncertainty (or at least perceived uncertainty) because, as the Statement notes, never before has a legal system had to deal with autonomy other than in humans – harm has, until now, been caused by the voluntary actions or inactions of a human (or human agent). With the development of AI, that paradigm is shifting. But while AI has autonomy, it does not have legal personality – raising questions about where liability for its autonomous acts (or omissions) falls.   

Do we need new law for AI liability?

The Statement recognises that the UK (of which the legal jurisdiction of England & Wales is one part) does not have an AI-specific liability regime. Nonetheless, it notes that English law has frequently accommodated novel and disruptive technological developments by incrementally extending existing legal principles; and it concludes that in most cases existing well-established principles of English law can be applied to potential AI harms without significant difficulty.

What does (and doesn’t) the Legal Statement on AI harms do?

UKJT’s latest Legal Statement aims to answer questions around liability under English law for non-deliberate harms arising from AI use – for example, who might be liable where AI produces false Statements which damage a person’s reputation, or incorrect AI medical diagnostics lead to physical harm? The Statement is restricted to liability for non-deliberate harms – it is not concerned with bad actors and deliberate wrongdoing, though it notes that English law is more than capable of dealing with that too. The interaction between AI and data protection, and between AI and intellectual property are also out of the scope of the Statement, as is the use of AI by public authorities.

The Statement includes detailed discussion of a range of topics, including:

• In what circumstances, and on what legal basis, English common law might impose liability for loss caused by the use of AI;
• In what circumstances a professional might be liable for using (or failing to use) AI in their services; and whether they might be liable for erroneous AI output;
• Whether a person might be liable for harms caused by use of AI in the absence of fault; and
• Whether a person might be liable for false Statements made by an AI chatbot.

Although it is a lengthy document, the Statement has been designed to be accessible not only to lawyers but also to those with no legal training. It is also punctuated with helpful practical examples to bring the issues to life. As such, it is a valuable resource to lawyers and businesses considering how the law may apply to deployment of AI in their products and services.