Book excerpt: AI appears to disrupt key private law doctrines, and threatens to undermine some of the principal rights protected by private law. The social changes prompted by AI may also generate significant new challenges for private law. It is thus likely that AI will lead to new developments in private law. This Cambridge Handbook is the first dedicated treatment of the interface between AI and private law, and the challenges that AI poses for private law. This Handbook brings together a global team of private law experts and computer scientists to deal with this problem, and to examine the interface between private law and AI, which includes issues such as whether existing private law can address the challenges of AI and whether and how private law needs to be reformed to reduce the risks of AI while retaining its benefits.