More than half of Brazilian courts use AI tools. But their impact is still unclear

More than half of Brazil’s 92 courts already use some kind of artificial intelligence tool, according to a report by the think tank Fundação Getulio Vargas’ Center for Judicial Innovation, Administration, and Research (CIAPJ-FGV). At least 66 AI systems are in operation, providing crucial assistance in tackling the 82.6 million pending cases in Brazilian courts. 

Just over 11 percent of Brazil’s current backlog is made up of physical lawsuits, as the vast majority is digitalized. Not even India — which became the most populous country in the world this year — matches this volume of open cases, registering 50.3 million pending lawsuits at the end of July this year. 

Renata Braga, an assistant professor at the Fluminense Federal University’s Law School and a researcher at CIAPJ-FGV, said Brazil’s volume of pending lawsuits is unique. With one lawyer per 164 inhabitants and 1,800 law schools, the country also has the highest number of lawyers and law schools in the world, she explained, adding that access to justice in Brazil costs less than it does in many other countries. 

“This all leads to a culture of litigiousness,” she says, making AI initiatives all the more necessary. 

A 2021 survey by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) showed that judicial branch institutions use AI tools the most (55 percent), followed by the legislative (48 percent) and executive (45 percent) branches. More than 90 percent of the AI tools are built in-house, and most of them place emphasis on data structuring tasks such as categorization and triage flow, workflow automation, and information retrieval and extraction. 

But Fernanda Bragança, another lawyer and researcher at CIAPJ-FGV, says the...