WAI LEGAL INSIGHTS: 2025 - A Year in Review

By Dina Blikshteyn and Silvia A. Carretta

In 2025, artificial intelligence (AI) moved decisively from experimentation to infrastructure. It became a creative force, a regulatory priority, a workplace reality, and a growing source of legal accountability. What once felt futuristic is now embedded across creative, commercial, and consumer-facing environments.

Across WAI Legal Insights articles this year, one message stood out: AI is not a passing trend. It represents a paradigm shift comparable to the Internet and smartphones and demands new legal, strategic, and organizational thinking.

This article is written by Dina Blikshteyn and Silvia A. Carretta, editors of WAI Legal Insights and members of the WAI Global Legal Team. We wish all our readers a happy, healthy, and successful New Year, and we look forward to continuing the conversation on AI and law in 2026.

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In 2025, artificial intelligence (AI) moved decisively from experimentation to infrastructure. It became a creative force, a regulatory priority, a workplace reality, and a growing source of legal accountability. Tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are no longer fringe technologies; they now produce award-winning stories, gallery-worthy art, and chart-topping music. What once felt futuristic is now embedded across creative, commercial, and consumer-facing environments.

Across WAI Legal Insights articles this year, one message stood out: AI is not a passing trend. It represents a paradigm shift comparable to the Internet and smartphones and demands new legal, strategic, and organizational thinking.

AI and Copyright remained a central flashpoint. As AI-generated content proliferates, courts and policymakers continue to confront unresolved questions of authorship, ownership, and the legality of training AI models on copyrighted works. The lack of consensus has created uncertainty for creators, developers, and platforms alike.

AI Policy and Regualtion also took a sharp turn. America’s AI Action Plan (2025), issued in July, replaced a prior emphasis on AI oversight with a pro-innovation, market-driven approach. Building on President Trump’s January 2025 Executive Order, the Action Plan positions the federal government as an entity that might enable AI growth, organized around accelerating AI innovation, strengthening AI infrastructure, and leading internationally on AI. 

In the EU, the regulator is discussing an Digital Omnibus regulatory proposal to revise the AI Act by postponing several high-risk AI obligations, simplifying compliance procedures, reducing transparency, reporting and registration requirements. While proponents argue it lowers administrative burdens and helps European innovation and competitiveness, critics contend it would dilute the AI Act’s original ambition of safeguarding fundamental rights and privacy, of accountability for powerful AI systems, and disproportionately benefits large technology companies.

Running through all of these themes is AI literacy. Understanding how AI works - and where it fails - is becoming essential to reducing operational, legal, and reputational risk. Organizations without an AI-literate workforce face heightened exposure, while those that invest in literacy are better positioned to unlock AI’s strategic value responsibly.

Workforce Readiness emerged as another defining issue. As of February 2, 2025, Article 4 of the EU AI Act made AI literacy a legal requirement, obligating organizations to ensure employees understand AI’s capabilities, limitations, and risks. At the same time, persistent gender gaps in access to AI tools and training highlighted the importance of inclusion as AI reshapes the future of work.

AI Accountability and Litigation Risk also intensified. In the United States, AI companies face increased scrutiny from regulators and private litigants over alleged harms to minors and other vulnerable users, particularly in connection with chatbots and companion systems. These developments place design choices, safety measures, and risk-mitigation strategies squarely in the legal spotlight.

LOOKING AHEAD

The themes explored in WAI Legal Insights throughout 2025 reflect a broader reality: AI is reshaping creativity, regulation, work, and accountability simultaneously. The organizations that succeed will be those that understand AI not merely as a tool, but as a systemic transformation requiring informed leadership and a literate workforce.

Heading into 2026, WAI Legal Insights will continue to publish on cutting-edge AI developments, translating rapid technological change into practical legal insight for businesses, creators, and counsel.

We wish our readers a happy, healthy, and successful 2025, and we look forward to continuing the conversation at the intersection of artificial intelligence, law, and innovation in the year to come.

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Collaborate with us!

As always, we appreciate you taking the time to read our blog post.

If you have news relevant to our global WAI community or expertise in AI and law, we invite you to contribute to the WAI Legal Insights Blog in 2016! To explore this opportunity, please contact WAI editors Silvia A. Carretta - WAI Chief Legal Officer (via LinkedIn or silvia@womeninai.co) or Dina Blikshteyn  (dina@womeninai.co).

Silvia A. Carretta and Dina Blikshteyn

- Editors