California Courts Halt Statewide AI Translation Rollout

California's Judicial Council canceled a plan to roll out AI translation at court counters statewide, saying the service must first be reviewed for accuracy and efficiency, Times of San Diego reported. The council had sought vendors in August for a contract starting Dec. 1 and was due to name a winner on Oct. 26, but it published a cancellation notice on Oct. 15.

More than 30 courts piloted the voice-to-text tool from 2021 to April 2026. Legal aid groups used public records to compile cases where the AI translations did not match what court workers or members of the public said. San Diego Superior Court said its clerks preferred a telephone service with human interpreters, and that the tool struggled with fast speech and was not available in Mandarin or Haitian Creole.