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This week the AAA-ICDR unveiled the first AI Arbitrator for use by a major arbitral institution to decide outcomes in certain types of cases. In this Legal Update we describe how the AAA-ICDR intends for its AI Arbitrator to be used, including both its limitations and its safeguards.
Who should read this? In-house arbitration counsel, those drafting arbitration clauses, construction clients, and users (or potential users) of AAA-ICDR arbitration.
Background
In a webinar on 7 October 2025, moderated by Mayer Brown's James R. Ferguson, we explored with Professor Tony Casey (University of Chicago Law School), Svetlana Gitman (AAA‑ICDR), and Steven M. Bauer (JAMS) how AI is transforming the arbitral process, particularly as AI-assisted contracts have become more prevalent. In this webinar (recording here), Ms. Gitman described the major elements of the AAA-ICDR's new AI Arbitrator for resolving disputes (subject to human review) in a specific category of cases.
The AAA-ICDR's AI Arbitrator
While CIArb and arbitral institutions such as the SCC, VIAC, AAA-ICDR, SVAMC and CIETAC have all issued Guidelines on the use of AI in arbitration, the AAA-ICDR AI Arbitrator marks the first deployment by a major arbitral institution of an AI tool to actually generate awards in arbitral disputes. According to Ms. Gitman, this is "probably the most exciting thing that we've announced in the last 100 years". Ms. Gitman explained that the AAA-ICDR will use the AI tool exclusively to resolve two party, documents-only construction cases, and as it is an opt-in process, "no one can force you to do it." To this end, the AAA-ICDR trained the AI Arbitrator on more than 1500 construction awards and refined [it] with expert-labelled examples in preparation for use in construction cases. In addition, by limiting the AI Arbitrator to documents-only cases, the AAA-ICDR eliminates any cases that turn on questions of witness testimony or credibility.
Ms. Gitman explained how "once a case is with an AI Arbitrator the system is designed to replicate a human judgment." The parties submit the briefs, the AI Arbitrator reviews them and generates the summaries. The parties then provide feedback on the AI summaries. Parties often feel that the judge or arbitrator did not adequately understand either the evidence or their arguments, so this "review" step helps validate whether the AI Arbitrator got it right.
Based on this input, the AI Arbitrator will issue a draft award, which is then reviewed by a "human in the loop" – a human arbitrator who reviews and validates the AI Arbitrator's draft award. In particular, the human arbitrator reviews reasoning, evaluates, and, if needed, revises AI-driven outcomes before a decision is finalized.
Thus, AAA-ICDR's new AI Arbitrator will be used in documents-only construction cases where:
- the AI tool (a multi-agent architecture) has been extensively trained on human reasoning;
- both parties agree to its use; and
- its output is subject to a 'human-in-the-loop' review.
It remains to be seen whether arbitral parties will develop sufficient confidence in this limited context to expand the use of AI arbitrators to different kinds of disputes in different contexts. The AAA-ICDR says that it wants to "hear from the market" about what arbitral parties think the next documents-only case type should be.
Brief Comment
The AI Arbitrator may be useful in the construction industry where time, cost, and efficiency are paramount and the "human in the loop" may give users the comfort and confidence to try this new way of resolving their dispute. Like other AI "proof of concept" projects, the results are uncertain. It will be interesting to see if in the future, parties begin to incorporate the use of the AI Arbitrator in their dispute resolution provisions.
Little is known about what other institutions are doing by comparison. Healthy competition amongst arbitral institutions means that we will likely soon learn what other institutions are doing in this space for the benefit of their global users. We will be watching this development closely and provide further legal updates as events warrant. Should you wish to discuss anything in this Legal Update further, please contact any of the authors or your usual Mayer Brown contact.
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