When AI Becomes Evidence: What Legal Teams Need to Know Now
Chip Koons argued that AI has changed not just how lawyers work, but what counts as evidence — prompts, chatbot histories, and AI-generated drafts are the new footprints investigators follow.
AI + Evidence | MastersAI x TechnoCat Conference, Chicago, April 16, 2026.
Chip Koons opened his session with a simple and unsettling observation: AI has not just changed how lawyers work. It has changed what counts as evidence.
The shift is as significant as when email first entered the courtroom. Investigators once tracked human behavior through link files, shell bags, and local hard drives. Today they are following a different trail: prompts, chatbot histories, AI-generated drafts, and edited outputs. “New technology creates new evidence sources,” he said. “And if we don’t know what questions to ask or where to look, we may be missing the very evidence that wins the case.”
AI is a genuine force multiplier for legal teams — accelerating research, surfacing subtle shifts in communication patterns, detecting deepfakes, and helping predict case outcomes. But AI is equally powerful in the wrong hands. Bad actors are using it to manufacture false narratives, generate synthetic voice messages, and produce fake evidence that is cleaner and harder to detect than ever.
“Even if each data point is protected, the pattern itself can be sensitive.”
What Koons called the liar’s dividend may be the thorniest problem of all. AI does not just create fake evidence. It also casts doubt on legitimate evidence. He pointed to Fortis Advisors v. Crafton as an early signal of where this is heading — a case where AI-generated evidence materially affected the outcome. It will not be the last.
Key Takeaways
- AI prompts, outputs, and chatbot histories are emerging as a new category of discoverable evidence.
- The liar’s dividend cuts both ways — AI manufactures false evidence while undermining confidence in legitimate evidence.
- Courts are still working out admissibility, privilege, and authentication standards for AI-generated material.
- AI will redefine what defensible legal practice looks like.
- The profession needs to help write the rules now.
Conference Coverage: Chicago, April 16, 2026