Artificial Intelligence Is Rapidly Changing the PIA Process

The Maryland Public Information Act procedures are changing quickly with AI accelerating and misunderstanding components of the process. 

A recent presentation at the 2026 MACo Fall Symposium, Harnessing AI: Opportunities and Responsibilities for Counties, included a thorough presentation to local officials on the process changes that the Maryland Public Information Act is experiencing because of artificial intelligence (AI). Deputy Public Access Ombudsman, Alisa Bralove Scherr, covered a number of areas that are affected from the initial inquiry, all the way through the mediation process.

Now that AI can automate a PIA request independently, a few challenges present themselves in these circumstances including that AI:

• tends to make requests more broad, using terms like “any and all” instead of making targeted requests
• lacks human judgment and perspective in the mediation process

As for human requestors, other issues are coming up as they use AI to create their inquiry and collaborate on the production of the materials with custodians. It is quickly becoming evident that trusting AI hallucinations is not the only issue. Individuals makings requests have begun taking AI answers as the knowledge authority particularly when AI often misstates and misunderstands the PIA and the nuances of legal language. In these situations the bots are also, what Deputy Ombudsman Bralove Scherr described as,”confidently wrong.”