Agent incident · 2026-10-11
Incident: Air Canada was held liable for what its chatbot told a customer
A 2024 tribunal ruling that a company owns its bot's answers, and what that means for any agent that talks to customers.
What happened
In November 2022, Jake Moffatt used the chatbot on Air Canada's website while booking flights after a death in the family. The chatbot said a bereavement fare could be claimed retroactively, within 90 days. Air Canada's actual policy didn't allow that, and the refund was refused.
In February 2024, British Columbia's Civil Resolution Tribunal ruled for Moffatt (Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149). Air Canada had argued it couldn't be held liable for information provided by the chatbot. The tribunal disagreed, found negligent misrepresentation, and ordered the airline to pay $812.02 in total. The tribunal member wrote that there was no reason a customer "should know that one section of Air Canada's webpage is accurate, and another is not."
Sources:
- Tribunal decision: canlii.org
- CBC News: cbc.ca
The governance lesson
Your agent's words are your words. If it answers a customer, you made that statement. "The bot said it" is not a defence.
Policy answers need a source. The chatbot gave an answer that contradicted the company's own policy page. An agent that answers policy questions should quote or link the policy, not paraphrase from memory.
Some topics should go to a human. Refunds, pricing exceptions, anything involving money owed. These are exactly the questions where a confident wrong answer costs you.
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CUSTOMER ANSWERS
- Answer only from the listed source pages. Link the page.
- If the sources don't clearly answer it, say you'll check
and hand it to the owner.
- Never promise refunds, discounts, exceptions or deadlines.
Route those to the owner.The amount in this case was small. The principle isn't. For a one-person company, every agent that talks to customers is speaking with your voice and your liability.
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