AI Powered Courtroom Transcription and Workflow Automation for Timely Justice

Judicial systems in many countries face severe delays due to administrative ottlenecks within courtrooms rather than legal complexity alone. In India, over 50 million cases are pending, with average case resolution times stretching over a decade. A critical contributor to this backlog is the reliance on manual, paper based courtroom processes. Courts face an acute shortage of trained stenographers, resulting in delays in recording witness testimony, dictation of orders, and preparation of judgments. Proceedings are often documented manually, creating risks of errors, omissions, and inefficiencies. Case workflows during live hearings are uncoordinated, requiring judges to manage clerical tasks alongside adjudication. Litigants and lawyers frequently lack timely access to case updates, leading to adjournments, uncertainty, and reduced trust in the justice system. These inefficiencies disproportionately affect undertrial prisoners, low income litigants, and individuals without legal representation, for whom procedural delays translate into prolonged detention, financial hardship, and denial of timely remedies. The challenge is to modernize courtroom operations in a way that strengthens institutional capacity, preserves judicial discretion, and can scale across jurisdictions without requiring extensive new hardware or staffing.

Adalat AI is a nonprofit justice tech organization building an end to end AI powered digital infrastructure for courts in the Global South. Founded in India, Adalat AI works in close partnership with High Courts, State Judicial Academies, and court administrations to modernize judicial workflows and reduce systemic delays in justice delivery. Judicial systems across many low and middle income countries face chronic backlogs not because of legal complexity alone, but due to administrative and logistical inefficiencies. Manual transcription, paper based documentation, fragmented case workflows, and limited access to case information consume judicial time and disproportionately harm undertrial prisoners, low income litigants, and marginalized communities. Adalat AI addresses these bottlenecks by embedding domain trained AI tools directly into daily courtroom operations. Its platform automates high volume clerical tasks such as real time transcription of proceedings, workflow management during hearings, digitization and navigation of legal records, and citizen access to case updates. The objective is to strengthen institutional capacity so judges and court staff can focus on adjudication rather than administration. Adalat AI-s tools are currently live in over 4,000 courtrooms across nine Indian states, representing approximately 20 percent of India-s judiciary. Several High Courts have formally integrated or mandated the use of Adalat AI within their court systems, supported by structured training programs delivered through judicial academies. The organization is recognized under the Government of India-s IndiaAI Mission as one of the country-s leading generative AI initiatives, and the only nonprofit in that cohort. Adalat AI-s impact is being rigorously evaluated through a large scale randomized controlled trial led by J PAL at MIT, measuring effects on court efficiency, case resolution speed, and judicial quality. The organization-s long term goal is to enable scalable, context appropriate AI adoption for justice systems across the Global South.