The development of digital technologies has inevitably put on the agenda the problems of their application in judicial activity, primarily in justice in civil cases. Digitalization is actively penetrating the legal proceedings, procedural legislation and approaches to its application are changing. At the same time, traditional forms of judicial activity remain. The range of directions for the introduction of modern technologies is expanding following the achievements of scientific and technological progress. The author sets out to identify the relationship between the use of information technology and improving the efficiency of justice. The study showed that digital technologies can become an effective means of ensuring the effectiveness of civil and arbitration proceedings, reducing its costs and reducing the time for resolving cases. Digital technologies are able to ensure the efficiency of legal proceedings in modern conditions; however, they carry risks and problems, the solution of which should be suggested by procedural science. A special role is assigned to artificial intelligence technologies and machine learning methods. Scientists argue about the possibilities and social justification of their use in judicial activity. The attitude towards artificial intelligence on the part of specialists is extremely restrained. However, the experience of China, the USA, Germany, as well as domestic developments indicate an increasingly active and inevitable introduction of artificial intelligence into the system of civil jurisdiction. At the present stage, there is no point in discussing the possibility of using artificial intelligence in the civil process; it seems more productive to discuss its conditions and potential. In the paper, for the first time in Russian procedural science, it is proposed to consider the effectiveness of judicial protection implemented with its support as a key condition for the use of artificial intelligence in civil and arbitration proceedings. The author’s conclusions can be applied in practical activities to improve justice and procedural legislation.