Can AI Save You from a Lawsuit?

Ever type something in a text, email or Slack, pause for a second and think, “Is this too much?” and then hit send anyway? You’re probably not alone. 

Maybe it was a passive-aggressive dig at that co-worker you secretly despise, or a joke to the team that didn’t quite land. Or maybe it was something worse — and you didn’t even realize it.

Intentional or not, harmful communication shouldn’t be happening in the first place. But if the moment gets the best of you, wouldn’t it be great to have a second set of AI eyes to stop you before you hit send?

Can an Email Get You Sued at Work?

The short answer is yes, an email can get you sued at work. Workplace lawsuits don’t usually start with someone screaming in a meeting. They start quietly — with an email, a Slack message, or a DM. Something typed out in frustration or meant as a joke. Something inappropriate, biased, or harmful that leaves a digital trail.

The risk is underscored in the Hulu miniseries “The Dropout,” which detailed the real-life rise and fall of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. In it, a key character, venture capitalist Don Lucas, tells a Theranos board member he doesn’t use email anymore — because he’s been sued too many times. Extreme, but not irrational.  

Because a single message — sent in the heat of the moment — can cost someone their job, their reputation, or their company millions. 

Why Grammar Tools Can’t Protect You from Harassment Claims

Most of the AI you use every day wasn’t built to protect you — it was built to polish your writing. It can fix punctuation, suggest better phrasing, even rewrite your sentences to sound more professional. But it won’t tell you that what you’re saying might be illegal. Or discriminatory. Or just plain harmful.

So yeah, your email might be grammatically correct — but what good is a perfectly polished email if it could get you in trouble or your company sued?

While We're Here, Let’s Talk About Outdated Tech

Kudos to the companies that have systems in place to protect their teams, but the truth is, most of these systems are way behind the times.

They’ve got systems that archive problematic messages after the fact — but nothing that stops them in real time. And let’s be honest: catching a harmful message after it’s already been sent? That’s like putting on sunscreen after you’ve already got sun poisoning. 

It’s painful. It’s too late. And it doesn’t fix the damage.

What companies need isn’t another layer of post-incident review — they need AI that can catch the red flags before things go south. 

How HarmCheck Detects Risk Before You Hit Send

With everything that AI can do these days, it feels almost wild that there aren’t tools built to flag real risk in the way we talk to each other at work. But there is ONE.

It’s called HarmCheck — and it was built with the ugly stuff in mind. It looks for harmful, unlawful, and unethical language in emails and chats before you hit send. It doesn’t wait until HR has to get involved, or worse, legal. It steps in early — when things are still fixable.

And no, it’s not here to be the “tone police.” It’s here to protect you, your team, and your company from the kind of stuff that’s hard to come back from.

So, Can AI Save You from a Lawsuit?

Most AI tools can’t save you from a lawsuit — but the right one, aka HarmCheck, can definitely help. Because we’re at a point where it’s not enough for AI to be smart. It has to be safe. It has to be responsible. It has to understand context.

And most importantly — it has to stop harmful communication before it causes real harm.

Book a quick demo of HarmCheck: http://harmcheck.ai/demo. Or contact sales directly at mia@alphyco.com 

Mia DeLuca is the vice president of sales and marketing at Alphy

HarmCheck by Alphy is an AI communication compliance solution that detects and flags language that is harmful, unlawful, and unethical in digital communication. Alphy was founded to reduce the risk of litigation from harmful and discriminatory communication while helping employees communicate more effectively. For more information: www.harmcheck.ai.