Securities Class Actions Hit $3.8 Billion in 2024. AI Litigation Is Just Getting Started.

If you track securities litigation, 2024 was an interesting year.

The numbers: 229 new federal securities class actions filed, matching 2023’s total. Aggregate settlements hit $3.8 billion, with the top 10 cases accounting for about 60% of that. Median investor losses in settled cases reached $1.76 billion, the highest in a decade.

But the trend I’m watching isn’t in the aggregate numbers. It’s in the categories.

AI related filings more than doubled. There were 13 AI related securities class actions in 2024, up from just 6 in the first half of the year. In the first half of 2025, we’re already on pace to surpass that.

The allegations vary, but they generally fall into a pattern: shareholders claim companies made misleading statements about their AI capabilities, development timelines, or integration risks. When reality fell short of the marketing, stock prices dropped, and lawsuits followed.

Cryptocurrency cases are declining, but not disappearing. Only 8 crypto related filings in 2024, down significantly from the SPAC boom years. But as one researcher noted, “crypto is the elephant in the room”. Depending on how regulations evolve, this could change quickly.

Tech and healthcare remain the most sued sectors. Together, they accounted for more than half of all 2024 filings. Six of the top 10 settlements came from tech companies.

In securities matters, the question isn’t just whether the numbers were wrong. It’s whether anyone should have known they were wrong when the statements were made.

That requires reconstructing what information was available to decision makers at the time. What did the data show? What questions should have been asked? What anomalies should have triggered follow up?

The strongest cases on either side combine documentary evidence about what people said with analytical evidence about what the data actually showed.

This work isn’t going away.