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The Best of 2025: Maclean’s Top 10 AI Stories

Bots infiltrated every aspect of Canadians’ daily lives—and we were there to cover it all

December 15, 2025

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This was the year artificial intelligence leapt out of the abstract and into our daily lives. Chatbots became our friends, our co-workers, our personal shoppers, our therapists. And, of course, this powerful enmeshment raised a host of thorny ethical, philosophical and economic questions. This year, we featured stories that wrestled with the good, the bad and the scary of the AI revolution. Among the highlights: Cory Doctorow’s rousing manifesto on the enshittification of the internet and author J.B. Mackinnon’s fascinating essay on why he’s suing the world’s biggest AI companies for copyright infringement. Here, our top AI stories of 2025.

Smiling teenage girl holding a laptop in front of a colourful illustrated background containing dots and an arrow.

The Entry-Level Job Is Dying. AI Skills Could Save It.

Other countries are training students in AI from primary school. Canada hasn’t even started.

By Surranna Sandy

Illustration of a long-haired girl in a grey sweater sitting at a red-tinged computer monitor with her back to us

Why the Internet Is Worse Than Ever

On the “enshittification” of the online world—and how Canada can clean it up

By Cory Doctorow

Mechanical hand is holding a red apple

AI Is Ruining My Education

I’m a university student in Ontario, and everyone’s taking shortcuts. Learning has never felt lonelier.

By Charlotte MacDonald

A magnifying glass over the word "False"

Can AI Save Us From Misinformation?

AI slop is polluting Canada’s information ecosystem. I’m building an AI-powered fact-checker to fight back.

By Wilf Dinnick

AI Could Save Canada’s Health-Care System

Canada is running out of doctors. Artificial intelligence can help.

By Brett Belchetz

A map of Canada covered in little glowing white dots, with lines connecting the dots

Canada Needs Homegrown AI Infrastructure

Allowing American AI companies unfettered access to Canadian data means giving up our digital sovereignty

By Joshua van Es

A young woman sitting at a desk and watching a lecture video about AI in Theological Education

I Let an AI Avatar Teach My University Course

She looked and sounded exactly like me—and left us all with more questions than answers

By Anna Robbins

A student in a beige turtleneck, sitting in a crowded classroom and writing in a notebook by hand

My Classroom Will Be AI-Free This Fall

A humanities education is vital in this polarized world. But students need to read the books.

By Shawna Dolansky

Aged train with circuits behind

Railway Tycoons Shaped Canada. Don’t Let AI Barons Do the Same.

When a few people control a transformative technology, they control a nation’s future

By David Eliot

A curly-haired man in a white shirt, with his arms crossed over his chest

Big Tech v. Me

The world’s most powerful companies used my books, and millions more, without permission to train their AI models. I’m suing to stop them.

By J. B. MacKinnon

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