It's been touted as the saviour of humanity by some and the augur of its demise by others; a calculator for words and an automated mansplaining machine, a work enhancer and a destroyer of jobs. What we can be sure of is that AI has generated a huge amount of investment and a multitude of headlines and think pieces.
Previous waves of technology have gently lapped at the shores of the legal sector: big data, blockchain, metaverse to pick a few from recent years. But when generative AI arrived, it threatened a tsunami for lawyers. Here was a tool that could generate text and replicate style, tone and structure. Following the recent two-year anniversary of the launch of ChatGPT, which forced generative AI into the public consciousness, what has the actual impact on professional services been?
The fear was that AI would replace lawyers. It could pass exams, give plausible answers to complex questions and draft convincing text. Initially however, the failures were as visible as the successes, with lawyers reprimanded for submitting briefs written by ChatGPT, citing fictitious cases. Answers were generic and sometimes included hallucinations (formerly known as factual errors). However, in 2024, the solutions started to mature. Existing legal technology providers wove AI into their products, and experiments helped firms to understand the use cases and the pros and cons of this seemingly magical technology.
Has AI transformed the legal sector? Undoubtedly, but perhaps not in the ways that were first envisaged. Perhaps the biggest impact of generative AI has been to show lawyers that technology is a significant part of their future. Interest in legal technology in general has increased and the trojan horse of AI has allowed firms to drive adoption of existing, as well as new, technologies. But rather than replacing humans, it's being used to augment them - performing as an assistant rather than an assassin. Firms started to realise that they could automate some of the tedious work and admin that does not add value, but does consume precious time.
Two years on, the hype has died down and the benefits of generative AI are starting to emerge. Less as a tsunami and more of a steady stream. It is being built into the tools we use already, by Microsoft through Copilot and by vendors of document, case and practice management systems and more. That is, it is making our systems smarter, and allowing our humans to work smarter too.
As firms identify and exploit the use cases where AI can help them, we will start to see it become part of the furniture. That gives us challenges about how we train our people, how we value the work that we do and how we control quality and risk, but these are all surmountable. In the coming years agentic AI is sure to become the next big thing, allowing AI to not just give answers, but to carry out complex tasks by working with other AIs and systems.
What we can be sure of is that AI is here to stay. Notwithstanding the cost and environmental concerns (both of which are likely to reduce over time), AI will continue to seep into the bedrock of law firms and to feed new growth, as well as potentially increasing access to justice and making it cheaper to solve certain types of legal problems.
Contributor
Innovation & Technology Director
