Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly intersects with judicial processes, raising new challenges for courts and judges. One significant concern linked to this development is the ability of judges and court personnel to understand, evaluate, and critically engage with AI systems. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act adopted in 2024 addresses this directly, requiring public bodies using AI to ensure their staff possess a ‘sufficient level of AI literacy’. This chapter argues that enhancing AI competence among judges and court personnel is essential to safeguarding the right to a fair trial, legal certainty, and the rule of law in an increasingly digitalised legal environment. After providing a brief overview of AI literacy obligations in the EU AI Act, the chapter offers insights into how national judicial training institutions could integrate AI literacy into their curricula.

This chapter discusses the integration of AI into the judicial systems of Lithuania and Poland. It provides a historical context, outlining the progress of both countries in digitalisation and AI readiness. The chapter notes relevant political and planning documents and then focuses on the current state of AI in non-judicial and judicial activities within the courts of Lithuania and Poland. The authors present technological solutions used for case assignment, case handling, and document processing, anonymisation of judgments, voice-to-text transcription, and tools developed for automating press release preparation. The chapter then explores the potential for AI in judicial decision-making, considering the prospects for partial and full judicial automation and identifying scenarios where AI could play a more significant role without compromising the quality of judicial outcomes. It highlights the Polish pilot project ‘Digital Judge’s Assistant’, and discusses the stringent regulations under the EU AI Act 2024 and the GDPR that govern the use of AI in judicial processes.

This chapter focuses on the judicial use of AI in German courts. In recent years, the work of German courts has changed significantly due to increasing digitalisation in particular through the introduction of electronic court files and electronic communication with the courts. AI is being used in a number of different applications and is being tested in several pilot projects. After an overview of the court organisation and competences, the most important projects and possible applications of AI in German courts are described. The opportunities and challenges of AI for the German justice system and its impact on the work of German courts are analysed. Applications include automatic speech recognition, data extraction, anonymisation of court decisions, and support for judicial decision-making. These use-cases are then evaluated in the light of German constitutional law and the EU’s AI Act 2024.