AI has already triggered lawsuits in some surprisingly niche and unusual ways, well beyond the “usual” copyright and data‑scraping battles. Below is a menu of angles companies should actively police for in their own deployments and in vendor contracts.copyrightalliance+1​

Hallucinations as defamation & false attribution

• Chatbots inventing criminal accusations about real people (e.g., a Georgia radio host allegedly “accused of embezzlement” in a nonexistent lawsuit) have led to defamation suits against model providers.news.
• Generative systems outputting fabricated news that is then falsely attributed to reputable publishers (e.g., “hallucinated” stories presented as Wall Street Journal or NYT content) underpin trademark and false‑designation claims by news orgs.

Weaponization of prompt injection & model extraction

• One startup allegedly used prompt‑injection attacks and fake credentials to coerce a competitor’s medical AI into revealing its hidden system prompts and design, leading to a trade secrets lawsuit under the Defend Trade Secrets Act.​
• These attacks turn typical “red‑team” techniques into alleged industrial espionage, blurring the line between normal adversarial testing and unlawful misappropriation.​

Biometric exploitation in unexpected places

• Facial recognition from “ordinary” consumer photos (e.g., cloud photo storage) has triggered BIPA class actions when used to refine recognition models and resold to law enforcement without explicit consent.​
• Voice data captured through social platforms and messaging tools is being litigated as unlawful “voiceprint” collection and storage, as courts start treating voice as a biometric identifier on par with fingerprints and face scans.​

AI‑mediated discrimination and denial of basic rights

• Automated hiring and promotion screeners have allegedly penalized candidates with disabilities (e.g., an Indigenous Deaf applicant scored down because the system “expected” typical vocal cues), raising ADA and civil‑rights claims even where bias was unintentional.​
• Health insurers are being sued for using claims‑denial algorithms that reject or auto‑close hundreds of thousands of claims in seconds, allegedly leading to premature hospital discharges and deaths, reframing “efficiency tools” as potential negligence or wrongful‑death engines.​

Deepfake and likeness “resurrection”

• Estates have sued over AI‑generated “new performances” by dead artists (e.g., a full‑length comedy special in the style and voice of a deceased comedian), arguing both copyright infringement and post‑mortem right‑of‑publicity violations.​
• Voice‑cloning platforms that let customers “clone any voice” have faced suits from actors alleging their voices were ingested and monetized without consent, even when the platform used slightly altered names and images.​

AI misuse by lawyers and professionals

• Courts have sanctioned lawyers personally for filing briefs drafted by AI that cited non‑existent cases and fabricated quotes, treating blind reliance on AI as a professional‑conduct violation rather than a mere technical error.​
• This is drifting from “bad practice” into potential malpractice exposure, especially in regulated professions (law, medicine, financial advice) where AI‑generated errors directly harm clients.npr+1​

Surreptitious use of private communications for training

• Platforms are facing class actions for allegedly harvesting private messages and internal communications to train AI models, after quietly updating privacy policies to permit such use.​
• Beyond privacy and contract claims, this raises potential duties around employee monitoring, trade secrets, and confidential client communications when those messages are ingested into models.​

AI‑driven product misrepresentation & safety failures

• Autonomous‑driving and advanced‑driver‑assistance systems marketed as essentially self‑driving have been sued after fatal crashes, with plaintiffs framing “AI‑enhanced” branding as fraudulent misrepresentation of safety and capability.​
• Where AI triage or routing systems in customer service or insurance direct people away from human help in critical contexts, plaintiffs are beginning to argue that the algorithm itself contributed to negligent delay or denial of necessary services.​

Brand, identity and platform hijacking by AI

• Large players have been sued for rebranding AI products with names identical to smaller incumbents (e.g., “Gemini”), with claims that the AI rebrand bulldozed pre‑existing marks in the same AI tooling space.​
• Generative features labeled with famous platform or product names (e.g., “Cameo” for an AI video feature using celebrity‑style likenesses) have drawn trademark and unfair‑competition suits, especially when user confusion is evidenced by misdirected support requests.​

Right‑of‑publicity twists with synthetic media

• Music and image generators that let users produce “in the style of X” content are being sued not just for copyright infringement but also for misuse of persona—especially where biometric or voiceprint data is alleged in the training mix.​
• Training on customer‑uploaded photos and videos, then using resulting models to power public features, can be framed as commercial exploitation of identity without adequate disclosure or opt‑out.​

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If you share the angle or audience of your LinkedIn article (e.g., “GCs of mid‑size tech/SaaS” vs “boards and founders”), a tailored checklist can be drafted that maps these unusual fact‑patterns into concrete controls: policy clauses, logging requirements, vendor‑DD questions, and internal red‑team scenarios.

1. https://copyrightalliance.org/ai-lawsuit-developments-2024-review/
2. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/openai-hit-with-first-defamation-suit-over-chatgpt-hallucination
3. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-04/ai-artificial-intelligence-hallucinations-defamation-chatgpt/104518612
4. https://www.mckoolsmith.com/newsroom-ailitigation-28
5. https://www.npr.org/2025/07/10/nx-s1-5463512/ai-courts-lawyers-mypillow-fines
6. https://copyrightalliance.org/ai-lawsuit-developments-2024/
7. https://www.thefashionlaw.com/from-chatgpt-to-deepfake-creating-apps-a-running-list-of-key-ai-lawsuits/
8. https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/insights/blogs/wilmerhale-privacy-and-cybersecurity-law/20250331-year-in-review-2024-ai-securities-litigation-trends
9. https://www.dglaw.com/court-rules-ai-training-on-copyrighted-works-is-not-fair-use-what-it-means-for-generative-ai/
10. https://jipel.law.nyu.edu/andersen-v-stability-ai-the-landmark-case-unpacking-the-copyright-risks-of-ai-image-generators/
11. https://www.rpclegal.com/thinking/artificial-intelligence/ai-guide/generative-ai-addressing-copyright/
12. https://www.bakerlaw.com/services/artificial-intelligence-ai/case-tracker-artificial-intelligence-copyrights-and-class-actions/
13. https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/article/20/3/182/7922541
14. https://www.traverselegal.com/blog/ai-litigation-beyond-copyright/
15. https://www.culawreview.org/journal/redefining-defamation-establishing-proof-of-fault-for-libel-and-slander-in-ai-hallucinations