Arizona Supreme Court AI news reporters

What happened

On March 11, 2025, the Arizona Supreme Court issued a news release introducing "AI-generated court news reporters." The 2 avatars, named Daniel and Victoria, are synthetic presenters that deliver short videos about the court's decisions, opinions, new rules and regulatory updates on azcourts.gov and the court's social media accounts. Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer said in the release that the program would let people "quickly stay informed on Court decisions, new rules, and regulatory updates."

According to Arizona PBS, the court's public information officer, Alberto Rodriguez, proposed the approach, and the videos are produced with software called Creatify. The Chief Justice told the station: "I wanted video because video is where people get their news; they don't have time to read through this stuff."

What the court did

The court adopted the avatars as an institutional communications tool rather than in any case. Arizona PBS described the process: the justice who authored an opinion drafts the press release, and all justices must approve both the release and the script the avatar reads. The system generates the face and voice; it does not generate the content. The Chief Justice also said the court was considering further avatars to guide the public through common matters such as traffic tickets.

Where it stands

The program was in use at the time of 2025 reporting. Later in 2025, the same court system drew national attention when an AI-generated victim impact statement was played at a Maricopa County sentencing, and the Arizona Supreme Court told reporters that AI can "hinder or upend justice if used inappropriately." Whether the avatar program has changed since was not confirmed for this entry.

The obligation it engaged

This is a court using a system to deliver its own words, and it illustrates the conditions under which a generated presenter carries no question of authority. The content originates with the justices, is approved by all of them, and matches a written release that anyone can compare with the video. That is checkability, Clause 4, in its simplest form: each video can be checked against a human-authored text before and after it is published.

The program also discloses itself. The release announced the avatars as AI-generated, and the court named them. Disclosure, Clause 8, is what separates this use from the avatar that appeared unannounced before the New York Appellate Division about 2 weeks after the release.

The approval process is also a record. Because every script is drafted and approved before it is voiced, the court can show at any later date who wrote the words and when they were approved, which is the purpose of a contemporaneous record, Clause 7. A professional who uses a generated presenter for any purpose can adopt the same sequence: write the text, approve it, keep it, and only then render it.

Sources

• Arizona Supreme Court · March 11, 2025
  News Release: Arizona Supreme Court Introduces AI-Generated Court News Reporters
• Arizona PBS · April 10, 2025
  Arizona Supreme Court unveils AI avatars to announce rulings
• ABC15 Arizona · May 9, 2025
  Defense attorney appeals after AI video used in court sentencing

What could not be confirmed

The cost of the program was reported by other outlets but was not confirmed in sources opened. The current status of the avatar program and the number of videos published were not confirmed.