New figures from Monaco Solicitors, the UK's largest employment law firm acting for individuals, reveal a steep rise in employees pointing to artificial intelligence when they come for help. In 2023, roughly 1 in 1,400 cases mentioned AI. So far in 2026 it is 1 in 85, and the year is only half done.

Something is changing in the British workplace, and the people living through it are starting to name it.

New data drawn from the caseload of Monaco Solicitors, the UK's biggest employment law firm representing employees only, shows that the number of people citing artificial intelligence as a reason for losing their job has climbed sharply every year since 2023.

The share of cases that mention AI has more than doubled year on year, and in 2026 it has reached its highest level yet.

Drawn from tens of thousands of employment cases every year - which is one of the largest employee-side caseloads in the country - the trend is unmistakable:

• 2023: AI mentioned in 0.07% of cases
• 2024: 0.17% of cases
• 2025: 0.57% of cases
• 2026 (to end June) 1.18% of cases

Read those figures in a few different ways and the same picture keeps emerging.

It’s accelerating, not just rising

The proportion of cases mentioning AI has more than doubled every year: from 0.07% to 0.17%, then to 0.57%, and now to 1.18%. That is a roughly seventeenfold increase in the share of cases in the space of three and a half years. Put simply, AI has gone from a footnote to a theme.

2026 is already a record, with half the year still to come

With half the year still to run, 2026 has already overtaken the whole of 2025 for AI-related cases. If the current pace holds, this year will end with more than double last year's number, and roughly thirty times the level of 2023.

The odds have shifted dramatically

In 2023, an employee raising AI was a rarity: about one in every 1,400 cases. Today it is closer to one in 85. What was once an outlier is fast becoming a recognisable category of dispute.

One firm, but a revealing one

These are the cases of a single specialist firm, but not just any firm. Monaco Solicitors is the largest employment practice in the UK acting for individuals, which makes its caseload an unusually broad window onto what is happening to ordinary workers. When a bellwether like this moves, it’s worth watching.

What does 'AI as a reason' actually look like?

The phrase covers far more than the obvious image of a robot taking someone's desk.

Across these cases, artificial intelligence shows up in several distinct ways:

• Replacement and restructuring: roles cut or redefined because a task can now be automated, with 'AI' or 'automation' given as the business reason for redundancy.
• Management by algorithm: performance scored, ranked or flagged by software, with human managers acting on a number rather than a conversation.
• Monitoring and surveillance: AI tools tracking activity, output or even keystrokes, then feeding into disciplinary action.
• Automated decisions: hiring, shift allocation and sometimes dismissal decisions shaped by systems that employees say they could neither see nor challenge.
• Machine error: people wrongly flagged by an automated process, then left to prove a negative against a system that does not explain itself.

In other words, AI is not one story. It’s many, and they are all landing on the same desks.

A word of caution, and why it still matters

A case mentioning AI is not proof that AI alone cost someone their job. Workplaces are complicated, and dismissals usually have more than one cause. But that is exactly what makes the trend so striking.

This is not a survey asking people to guess about the future. It’s a count of real people, in real disputes, increasingly reaching for the same explanation of what went wrong. When the language of a workforce shifts this fast, it tends to be a leading indicator, not a lagging one.

Behind every one of these numbers is a person: a livelihood lost, bills to pay, and a growing sense that a machine, or a company sheltering behind one, had a hand in it. The data suggests that that feeling is no longer unusual. It is becoming common.

‘Five years ago, almost nobody blamed AI for losing their job, says Alex Monaco, employment lawyer and founder of both Grapple Law and Monaco Solicitors. Now it is one of the fastest growing reasons we hear. At the same time, jobs are being created (like at my AI law firm ‘Grapple Law’, helping people who couldn't access justice before). So it remains to be seen how many people will be left standing when all this AI musical chairs stops.’

Where Grapple Law comes in

Grapple Law was built for exactly this moment. It is an AI law firm for people with a work problem in the UK, created by employment lawyer Alex Monaco, who also founded Monaco Solicitors.

The idea is simple: use the same kind of technology that is reshaping the workplace to give employees a fair fight when something goes wrong.

Grapple Law helps people write the right legal letters, understand their rights in plain English, negotiate settlements and, where needed, take a claim forward, all on a no win, no fee basis (a 15% success fee, with nothing to pay up front). The individual stays in control at every step, and nothing is ever sent without their OK.

To date, Grapple Law has helped over 30,000 people and won more than £1.2 million for its clients, with a 4.9 rating on Google and 4.8 on Trustpilot, plus coverage from the BBC, The Observer, The Lawyer and The Mirror.

The mission is simple: justice for everyone. For too long, large organisations have relied on deeper pockets and better lawyers to wear individuals down. Grapple Law exists to level that playing field, and to make good legal help fast, affordable and available to anyone, not just those who can afford City rates.

As artificial intelligence takes on a bigger role in who keeps their job and who loses it, the same technology can help make sure people are treated fairly, and know their rights, on the way through. If AI is going to be part of the problem, Grapple Law is betting it can also be part of the answer.

Grapple Law is a trading name of Grapple Tech Ltd. Monaco Solicitors is the UK's largest employment law firm acting for individuals only. Both were founded by employment lawyer Alex Monaco. Figures are drawn from Monaco Solicitors' caseload; the 2026 figure covers the first half of the year (January to June 2026) and is therefore a part-year number.