When a chatbot gives a customer the wrong answer, the question is no longer whether someone is responsible. Courts have answered it: the company that put the chatbot on its website is. Here is what the cases say, and what it means for any business with an AI assistant.
The case everyone cites: Moffatt v. Air Canada
In 2022, Jake Moffatt asked Air Canada's website chatbot about bereavement fares after his grandmother died. The chatbot told him he could buy a full-price ticket and claim the discount within 90 days. No such policy existed. When he asked for the refund, Air Canada refused.
In February 2024, the British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal ruled against the airline. Air Canada had argued that the chatbot was responsible for its own actions. The tribunal called that "a remarkable submission". The chatbot was part of Air Canada's website, so Air Canada was responsible for what it said, just as it is for any other page. It also rejected the argument that the correct policy was published elsewhere on the site: a customer cannot be expected to double-check one part of a website against another.
The amount was small, about C$812 in damages and fees. The principle was not.
It is not just Canada
Germany, 2026. In May 2026, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm held two doctors who run an aesthetic medicine company responsible for their website chatbot, which told consumers they were specialists in aesthetic medicine and plastic surgery. The court rejected the idea that a chatbot is a third party, ordered the claims to stop, and allowed an appeal to Germany's Federal Court of Justice.
New York City, 2024. Reporters found that the city's own MyCity business chatbot told employers they could take a cut of workers' tips and refuse tenants with housing vouchers, both illegal in New York. The city kept the bot online for months. In January 2026, the new administration announced plans to shut it down.
What US regulators have said
Banks and lenders. In 2023, the CFPB warned that poorly deployed chatbots can harm customers and may break federal consumer finance laws: wrong answers about fees or rights, customers stuck in loops with no way to reach a person, and bots that fail to recognize a dispute or a complaint.
Everyone else. The FTC treats claims about AI like any other marketing claim. In 2025 it finalized an order against DoNotPay, which had advertised a "robot lawyer", requiring it to pay $193,000 and stop making claims it could not back up. What your chatbot says, and what you say about your chatbot, both count.
What this means for your business
The pattern is the same everywhere. A chatbot speaks for the company. "The AI made it up" is not a defense, and neither is "the right answer was on another page". The risk is highest where a wrong answer costs someone money or rights: prices and refunds, fees, loan terms, insurance coverage, medical claims, and what happens when a customer asks for a person.
Most of these failures were found by customers, journalists or courts, after the fact. The cheaper moment to find them is before your customers do.
Sources
- American Bar Association: BC tribunal confirms companies remain liable for chatbot information
- DLA Piper: A German court holds doctors liable for chatbot responses (2026)
- The Markup: NYC's AI chatbot tells businesses to break the law
- The Markup: Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot (2026)
- CFPB: Chatbots in consumer finance (2023)
- FTC: Order against DoNotPay (2025)