The legal industry is experiencing swift changes, with technology becoming an ever more crucial factor in its evolution. As law firms respond to shifting client demands and regulatory changes, the pace of change is accelerating. Embracing legal tech is no longer just an advantage; it’s a necessity.
According to a Forbes report, 66% of legal leaders acknowledge this trend and intend to boost their investments in legal tech moving forward. From artificial intelligence streamlining workflows to cloud computing enabling globalized legal services, the legal landscape is undergoing a digital revolution.
In this article, we’ll explore five key legal tech trends that will define how law firms operate in 2025.
A new study from the Blickstein Group reveals some distributing trends for law firms that represent businesses, particularly large ones. The Study is entitled Legal Service Delivery in the Age of AI. The Study was done jointly by FTI Technologies, a consulting group, and Blickstein. It looks at law department legal operations.
The Findings
GenAI Use by Legal Ops Personnel
The responses reflect a bullish view of what GenAI can do in the legal marketplace but also demonstrate GenAi has a ways to go:
Almost 80% of the respondents think that GenAI will become an “essential part of the legal profession.
81% believe GenAi will drive improved efficiencies
Despite this belief, only some 30% have plans to purchase GenAI tools. For 81%, the primary reason for obtaining and using GenAI tools is the efficiencies these tools bring.
52% say their GenAI strategy is not as sophisticated as they would like or nonexistent.
The biggest barrier to the use of GenAI among the legal ops professions is cost and security concerns and the lack of skilled personnel available to them.
Voting has now closed and your votes have been tallied to pick the 15 legal tech startups that will get to participate as finalists in the ninth-annual Startup Alley at ABA TECHSHOW 2025, taking place April 2-5 in Chicago.
These 15 finalists will face off in an opening-night pitch competition that is the opening event of TECHSHOW, with the conference’s attendees voting at the conclusion of the pitches to pick the top winners.
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has brought a new wave of opportunities to the legal profession, opening doors to greater efficiency and innovation. Its rapid development has also raised questions about its integration within the legal industry. As legal professionals are presented with more options for adopting new technologies, they now face the important task of understanding how GenAI can be seamlessly — and ethically — incorporated into their daily operations.
The court reporting industry is evolving rapidly, propelled by technological advancements and the increasing demand for efficiency in the legal sector. For 2025, trends such as artificial intelligence (AI), real-time transcription technologies, and data-driven tools are reshaping how legal professionals work. Here’s an overview of these emerging trends and five reasons law firms should embrace these advancements.
Unfortunately, without regulatory protections, we humans will likely become the objective that AI agents are tasked with optimizing.
I am most concerned about the conversational agents that will engage us in friendly dialog throughout our daily lives. They will speak to us through photorealistic avatars on our PCs and phones and soon, through AI-powered glasses that will guide us through our days. Unless there are clear restrictions, these agents will be designed to conversationally probe us for information so they can characterize our temperaments, tendencies, personalities and desires, and use those traits to maximize their persuasive impact when working to sell us products, pitch us services or convince us to believe misinformation. .
How do investigative journalists organize years of research, thousands of documents, and piles of notes? With toolkits like that of Madison Hopkins, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting has exposed Chicago’s fatal fire safety failures and flawed surveillance programs.
Read on for Madison’s tools for managing long-term investigative projects — from her note-taking system to her workflow for tracking public records. Whether you’re a journalist or manage other kinds of projects, you’ll find multiple resources for your own work. – Jeremy
When technologist Luis von Ahn was building the popular language-learning platform Duolingo, he faced a big problem: Could an app designed to teach you something ever compete with addictive platforms like Instagram and TikTok? He explains how Duolingo harnesses the psychological techniques of social media and mobile games to get you excited to learn — all while spreading access to education across the world. .
The following AI capabilities will start rolling out to Google Workspace Business customers today and to Enterprise customers later this month:
Get AI assistance in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Meet, Chat, Vids, and more: Do your best work faster with AI embedded in the tools you use every day.Gemini streamlines your communications by helping you summarize, draft, and find information in your emails, chats, and files. It can be a thought partner and source of inspiration, helping you create professional documents, slides, spreadsheets, and videos from scratch. Gemini can even improve your meetings by taking notes, enhancing your audio and video, and catching you up on the conversation if you join late.
Chat with Gemini Advanced, Google’s next-gen AI: Kickstart learning, brainstorming, and planning with the Gemini app on your laptop or mobile device. Gemini Advanced can help you tackle complex projects including coding, research, and data analysis and lets you build Gems, your team of AI experts to help with repeatable or specialized tasks.
Unlock the power of NotebookLM Plus: We’re bringing the revolutionary AI research assistant to every employee, to help them make sense of complex topics. Upload sources to get instant insights and Audio Overviews, then share customized notebooks with the team to accelerate their learning and onboarding.
Google’s Gemini AI is stepping up its game in Google Workspace, bringing powerful new capabilities to your favorite tools like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets:
AI-Powered Summaries: Get concise, AI-generated summaries of long emails and documents so you can focus on what matters most.
Smart Reply: Gemini now offers context-aware email replies that feel more natural and tailored to your style.
Slides and images generation: Gemini in Slides can help you generate new images, summarize your slides, write and rewrite content, and refer to existing Drive files and/or emails.
Automated Data Insights: In Google Sheets, Gemini helps create a task tracker, conference agenda, spot trends, suggest formulas, and even build charts with simple prompts.
Intelligent Drafting: Google Docs now gets a creativity boost, helping you draft reports, proposals, or blog posts with AI suggestions and outlines.
Meeting Assistance: Say goodbye to the awkward AI attendees to help you take notes, now Gemini can natively do that for you – no interruption, no avatar, and no extra attendee. Meet can now also automatically generate captions to lower the language barrier.
Eveyln (from FlexOS) also mentions that CoPilot is getting enhancements too:
It’s exactly what we predicted: stand-alone AI apps like note-takers and image generators have had their moment, but as the tech giants step in, they’re bringing these features directly into their ecosystems, making them harder to ignore.
The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately. This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world. This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.
The initial equity funders in Stargate are SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX. SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility. Masayoshi Son will be the chairman.
Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI are the key initial technology partners. The buildout is currently underway, starting in Texas, and we are evaluating potential sites across the country for more campuses as we finalize definitive agreements.
Adobe is launching new generative AI tools that can automate labor-intensive production tasks like editing large batches of images and translating video presentations. The most notable is “Firefly Bulk Create,” an app that allows users to quickly resize up to 10,000 images or replace all of their backgrounds in a single click instead of tediously editing each picture individually.
With that out of the way, I prefer Claude.ai for writing. For larger projects like a book, create a Claude Project to keep all context in one place.
Copy [the following] prompts into a document
Use them in sequence as you write
Adjust the word counts and specifics as needed
Keep your responses for reference
Use the same prompt template for similar sections to maintain consistency
Each prompt builds on the previous one, creating a systematic approach to helping you write your book.
Using NotebookLM to Boost College Reading Comprehension— from michellekassorla.substack.com by Michelle Kassorla and Eugenia Novokshanova This semester, we are using NotebookLM to help our students comprehend and engage with scholarly texts
We were looking hard for a new tool when Google released NotebookLM. Not only does Google allow unfettered use of this amazing tool, it is also a much better tool for the work we require in our courses. So, this semester, we have scrapped our “old” tools and added NotebookLM as the primary tool for our English Composition II courses (and we hope, fervently, that Google won’t decide to severely limit its free tier before this semester ends!)
If you know next-to-nothing about NotebookLM, that’s OK. What follows is the specific lesson we present to our students. We hope this will help you understand all you need to know about NotebookLM, and how to successfully integrate the tool into your own teaching this semester.
AFTER two years of working closely with leadership in multiple institutions, and delivering countless workshops, I’ve seen one thing repeatedly: the biggest challenge isn’t the technology itself, but how we lead through it. Here is some of my best advice to help you navigate generative AI with clarity and confidence:
Break your own AI policies before you implement them. …
Fund your failures. …
Resist the pilot program. …
Host Anti-Tech Tech Talks …
…+ several more tips
While generative AI in higher education obviously involves new technology, it’s much more about adopting a curious and human-centric approach in your institution and communities. It’s about empowering learners in new, human-oriented and innovative ways. It is, in a nutshell, about people adapting to new ways of doing things.
Maria Anderson responded to Clay’s posting with this idea:
Here’s an idea: […] the teacher can use the [most advanced] AI tool to generate a complete solution to “the problem” — whatever that is — and demonstrate how to do that in class. Give all the students access to the document with the results.
And then grade the students on a comprehensive followup activity / presentation of executing that solution (no notes, no more than 10 words on a slide). So the students all have access to the same deep AI result, but have to show they comprehend and can iterate on that result.
In this age of distrust, misinformation, and skepticism, you may wonder how to demonstrate your sources within a Google Document. Did you type it yourself, copy and paste it from a browser-based source, copy and paste it from an unknown source, or did it come from generative AI?
You may not think this is an important clarification, but if writing is a critical part of your livelihood or life, you will definitely want to demonstrate your sources.
That’s where the new Grammarly feature comes in.
The new feature is called Authorship, and according to Grammarly, “Grammarly Authorship is a set of features that helps users demonstrate their sources of text in a Google doc. When you activate Authorship within Google Docs, it proactively tracks the writing process as you write.”
AI Agents Are Coming to Higher Education — from govtech.com AI agents are customizable tools with more decision-making power than chatbots. They have the potential to automate more tasks, and some schools have implemented them for administrative and educational purposes.
Custom GPTs are on the rise in education. Google’s version, Gemini Gems, includes a premade version called Learning Coach, and Microsoft announced last week a new agent addition to Copilot featuring use cases at educational institutions.
Generative Artificial Intelligence and Education: A Brief Ethical Reflection on Autonomy— from er.educause.edu by Vicki Strunk and James Willis Given the widespread impacts of generative AI, looking at this technology through the lens of autonomy can help equip students for the workplaces of the present and of the future, while ensuring academic integrity for both students and instructors.
The principle of autonomy stresses that we should be free agents who can govern ourselves and who are able to make our own choices. This principle applies to AI in higher education because it raises serious questions about how, when, and whether AI should be used in varying contexts. Although we have only begun asking questions related to autonomy and many more remain to be asked, we hope that this serves as a starting place to consider the uses of AI in higher education.
Top AI Tools of 2024 — from ai-supremacy.com by Michael Spencer (behind a paywall) Which AI tools stood out for me in 2024? My list.
Memorable AI Tools of 2024
Catergories included:
Useful
Popular
Captures the zeighest of AI product innovation
Fun to try
Personally satisfying
NotebookLM
Perplexity
Claude
…
New “best” AI tool? Really? — from theneurondaily.com by Noah and Grant
PLUS: A free workaround to the “best” new AI…
What is Google’s Deep Research tool, and is it really “the best” AI research tool out there? … Here’s how it works: Think of Deep Research as a research team that can simultaneously analyze 50+ websites, compile findings, and create comprehensive reports—complete with citations.
Unlike asking ChatGPT to research for you, Deep Research shows you its research plan before executing, letting you edit the approach to get exactly what you need.
…
It’s currently free for the first month (though it’ll eventually be $20/month) when bundled with Gemini Advanced. Then again, Perplexity is always free…just saying.
We couldn’t just take J-Cal’s word for it, so we rounded up some other takes:
Our take: We then compared Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, and Deep Research (which we’re calling DR, or “The Docta” for short) on robot capabilities from CES revealed:
An excerpt from today’s Morning Edition from Bloomberg
Global banks will cut as many as 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years—a net 3% of the workforce—as AI takes on more tasks, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence survey. Back, middle office and operations are most at risk. A reminder that Citi said last year that AI is likely to replace more jobs in banking than in any other sector. JPMorgan had a more optimistic view (from an employee perspective, at any rate), saying its AI rollout has augmented, not replaced, jobs so far.
NVIDIA’s Apple moment?! — from theneurondaily.com by Noah Edelman and Grant Harvey PLUS: How to level up your AI workflows for 2025…
NVIDIA wants to put an AI supercomputer on your desk (and it only costs $3,000). … And last night at CES 2025, Jensen Huang announced phase two of this plan: Project DIGITS, a $3K personal AI supercomputer that runs 200B parameter models from your desk. Guess we now know why Apple recently developed an NVIDIA allergy…
… But NVIDIA doesn’t just want its “Apple PC moment”… it also wants its OpenAI moment. NVIDIA also announced Cosmos, a platform for building physical AI (think: robots and self-driving cars)—which Jensen Huang calls “the ChatGPT moment for robotics.”
NVIDIA is bringing AI from the cloud to personal devices and enterprises, covering all computing needs from developers to ordinary users.
At CES 2025, which opened this morning, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang delivered a milestone keynote speech, revealing the future of AI and computing. From the core token concept of generative AI to the launch of the new Blackwell architecture GPU, and the AI-driven digital future, this speech will profoundly impact the entire industry from a cross-disciplinary perspective.
From DSC: I’m posting this next item (involving Samsung) as it relates to how TVs continue to change within our living rooms. AI is finding its way into our TVs…the ramifications of this remain to be seen.
The Rundown: Samsung revealed its new “AI for All” tagline at CES 2025, introducing a comprehensive suite of new AI features and products across its entire ecosystem — including new AI-powered TVs, appliances, PCs, and more.
The details:
Vision AI brings features like real-time translation, the ability to adapt to user preferences, AI upscaling, and instant content summaries to Samsung TVs.
Several of Samsung’s new Smart TVs will also have Microsoft Copilot built in, while also teasing a potential AI partnership with Google.
Samsung also announced the new line of Galaxy Book5 AI PCs, with new capabilities like AI-powered search and photo editing.
AI is also being infused into Samsung’s laundry appliances, art frames, home security equipment, and other devices within its SmartThings ecosystem.
Why it matters: Samsung’s web of products are getting the AI treatment — and we’re about to be surrounded by AI-infused appliances in every aspect of our lives. The edge will be the ability to sync it all together under one central hub, which could position Samsung as the go-to for the inevitable transition from smart to AI-powered homes.
***
“Samsung sees TVs not as one-directional devices for passive consumption but as interactive, intelligent partners that adapt to your needs,” said SW Yong, President and Head of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. “With Samsung Vision AI, we’re reimagining what screens can do, connecting entertainment, personalization, and lifestyle solutions into one seamless experience to simplify your life.” — from Samsung
The following framework I offer for defining, understanding, and preparing for agentic AI blends foundational work in computer science with insights from cognitive psychology and speculative philosophy. Each of the seven levels represents a step-change in technology, capability, and autonomy. The framework expresses increasing opportunities to innovate, thrive, and transform in a data-fueled and AI-driven digital economy.
The Rise of AI Agents and Data-Driven Decisions — from devprojournal.com by Mike Monocello Fueled by generative AI and machine learning advancements, we’re witnessing a paradigm shift in how businesses operate and make decisions.
AI Agents Enhance Generative AI’s Impact Burley Kawasaki, Global VP of Product Marketing and Strategy at Creatio, predicts a significant leap forward in generative AI. “In 2025, AI agents will take generative AI to the next level by moving beyond content creation to active participation in daily business operations,” he says. “These agents, capable of partial or full autonomy, will handle tasks like scheduling, lead qualification, and customer follow-ups, seamlessly integrating into workflows. Rather than replacing generative AI, they will enhance its utility by transforming insights into immediate, actionable outcomes.”
Everyone’s talking about the potential of AI agents in 2025 (and don’t get me wrong, it’s really significant), but there’s a crucial detail that keeps getting overlooked: the gap between current capabilities and practical reliability.
Here’s the reality check that most predictions miss: AI agents currently operate at about 80% accuracy (according to Microsoft’s AI CEO). Sounds impressive, right? But here’s the thing – for businesses and users to actually trust these systems with meaningful tasks, we need 99% reliability. That’s not just a 19% gap – it’s the difference between an interesting tech demo and a business-critical tool.
This matters because it completely changes how we should think about AI agents in 2025. While major players like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are pouring billions into development, they’re all facing the same fundamental challenge – making them work reliably enough that you can actually trust them with your business processes.
Think about it this way: Would you trust an assistant who gets things wrong 20% of the time? Probably not. But would you trust one who makes a mistake only 1% of the time, especially if they could handle repetitive tasks across your entire workflow? That’s a completely different conversation.
In the tech world, we like to label periods as the year of (insert milestone here). This past year (2024) was a year of broader experimentation in AI and, of course, agentic use cases.
As 2025 opens, VentureBeat spoke to industry analysts and IT decision-makers to see what the year might bring. For many, 2025 will be the year of agents, when all the pilot programs, experiments and new AI use cases converge into something resembling a return on investment.
In addition, the experts VentureBeat spoke to see 2025 as the year AI orchestration will play a bigger role in the enterprise. Organizations plan to make management of AI applications and agents much more straightforward.
Here are some themes we expect to see more in 2025.
AI agents take charge
Jérémy Grandillon, CEO of TC9 – AI Allbound Agency, said “Today, AI can do a lot, but we don’t trust it to take actions on our behalf. This will change in 2025. Be ready to ask your AI assistant to book a Uber ride for you.” Start small with one agent handling one task. Build up to an army.
“If 2024 was agents everywhere, then 2025 will be about bringing those agents together in networks and systems,” said Nicholas Holland, vice president of AI at Hubspot. “Micro agents working together to accomplish larger bodies of work, and marketplaces where humans can ‘hire’ agents to work alongside them in hybrid teams. Before long, we’ll be saying, ‘there’s an agent for that.'”
… Voice becomes default
Stop typing and start talking. Adam Biddlecombe, head of brand at Mindstream, predicts a shift in how we interact with AI. “2025 will be the year that people start talking with AI,” he said. “The majority of people interact with ChatGPT and other tools in the text format, and a lot of emphasis is put on prompting skills.
Biddlecombe believes, “With Apple’s ChatGPT integration for Siri, millions of people will start talking to ChatGPT. This will make AI so much more accessible and people will start to use it for very simple queries.”
Get ready for the next wave of advancements in AI. AGI arrives early, AI agents take charge, and voice becomes the norm. Video creation gets easy, AI embeds everywhere, and one-person billion-dollar companies emerge.
To better understand the types of roles that AI is impacting, ZoomInfo’s research team looked to its proprietary database of professional contacts for answers. The platform, which detects more than 1.5 million personnel changes per day, revealed a dramatic increase in AI-related job titles since 2022. With a 200% increase in two years, the data paints a vivid picture of how AI technology is reshaping the workforce.
Why does this shift in AI titles matter for every industry?
Ever since a new revolutionary version of chat ChatGPT became operable in late 2022, educators have faced several complex challenges as they learn how to navigate artificial intelligence systems.
…
Education Week produced a significant amount of coverage in 2024 exploring these and other critical questions involving the understanding and use of AI.
Here are the five most popular stories that Education Week published in 2024 about AI in schools.
Dr. Lodge said there are five key areas the higher education sector needs to address to adapt to the use of AI:
1. Teach ‘people’ skills as well as tech skills
2. Help all students use new tech
3. Prepare students for the jobs of the future
4. Learn to make sense of complex information
5. Universities to lead the tech change
Per The Rundown: OpenAI just launched a surprising new way to access ChatGPT — through an old-school 1-800 number & also rolled out a new WhatsApp integration for global users during Day 10 of the company’s livestream event.
Agentic AI represents a significant evolution in artificial intelligence, offering enhanced autonomy and decision-making capabilities beyond traditional AI systems. Unlike conventional AI, which requires human instructions, agentic AI can independently perform complex tasks, adapt to changing environments, and pursue goals with minimal human intervention.
This makes it a powerful tool across various industries, especially in the customer service function. To understand it better, let’s compare AI Agents with non-AI agents.
… Characteristics of Agentic AI
Autonomy: Achieves complex objectives without requiring human collaboration.
Language Comprehension: Understands nuanced human speech and text effectively.
Rationality: Makes informed, contextual decisions using advanced reasoning engines.
Adaptation: Adjusts plans and goals in dynamic situations.
Workflow Optimization: Streamlines and organizes business workflows with minimal oversight.
How, then, can we research and observe how our systems are used while rigorously maintaining user privacy?
Claude insights and observations, or “Clio,” is our attempt to answer this question. Clio is an automated analysis tool that enables privacy-preserving analysis of real-world language model use. It gives us insights into the day-to-day uses of claude.ai in a way that’s analogous to tools like Google Trends. It’s also already helping us improve our safety measures. In this post—which accompanies a full research paper—we describe Clio and some of its initial results.
Evolving tools redefine AI video — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper Google’s Veo 2, Kling 1.6, Pika 2.0 & more
AI video continues to surpass expectations
The AI video generation space has evolved dramatically in recent weeks, with several major players introducing groundbreaking tools.
Here’s a comprehensive look at the current landscape:
Veo 2…
Pika 2.0…
Runway’s Gen-3…
Luma AI Dream Machine…
Hailuo’s MiniMax…
OpenAI’s Sora…
Hunyuan Video by Tencent…
There are several other video models and platforms, including …
Picture your enterprise as a living ecosystem,where surging market demand instantly informs staffing decisions, where a new vendor’s onboarding optimizes your emissions metrics, where rising customer engagement reveals product opportunities. Now imagine if your systems could see these connections too! This is the promise of AI agents — an intelligent network that thinks, learns, and works across your entire enterprise.
Today, organizations operate in artificial silos. Tomorrow, they could be fluid and responsive. The transformation has already begun. The question is: will your company lead it?
The journey to agent-enabled operations starts with clarity on business objectives. Leaders should begin by mapping their business’s critical processes. The most pressing opportunities often lie where cross-functional handoffs create friction or where high-value activities are slowed by system fragmentation. These pain points become the natural starting points for your agent deployment strategy.
Artificial intelligence has already proved that it can sound like a human, impersonate individuals and even produce recordings of someone speaking different languages. Now, a new feature from Microsoft will allow video meeting attendees to hear speakers “talk” in a different language with help from AI.
What Is Agentic AI? — from blogs.nvidia.com by Erik Pounds Agentic AI uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems.
The next frontier of artificial intelligence is agentic AI, which uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems. And it’s set to enhance productivity and operations across industries.
Agentic AI systems ingest vast amounts of data from multiple sources to independently analyze challenges, develop strategies and execute tasks like supply chain optimization, cybersecurity vulnerability analysis and helping doctors with time-consuming tasks.
Client expectations have shifted significantly in today’s technology-driven world. Quick communication and greater transparency are now a priority for clients throughout the entire case life cycle. This growing demand for tech-enhanced processes comes not only from clients but also from staff, and is set to rise even further as more advances become available.
…
I see the shift to cloud-based digital systems, especially for small and midsized law firms, as evening the playing field by providing access to robust tools that can aid legal services. Here are some examples of how legal professionals are leveraging tech every day…
Just 10% of law firms and 21% of corporate legal teams have now implemented policies to guide their organisation’s use of generative AI, according to a report out today (2 December) from Thomson Reuters.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been rapidly deployed around the world in a growing number of sectors, offering unprecedented opportunities while raising profound legal and ethical questions. This symposium will explore the transformative power of AI, focusing on its benefits, limitations, and the legal challenges it poses.
AI’s ability to revolutionize sectors such as healthcare, law, and business holds immense potential, from improving efficiency and access to services, to providing new tools for analysis and decision-making. However, the deployment of AI also introduces significant risks, including bias, privacy concerns, and ethical dilemmas that challenge existing legal and regulatory frameworks. As AI technologies continue to evolve, it is crucial to assess their implications critically to ensure responsible and equitable development.
The role of legal teams in creating AI ethics guardrails — from legaldive.com by Catherine Dawson For organizations to balance the benefits of artificial intelligence with its risk, it’s important for counsel to develop policy on data governance and privacy.
How Legal Aid and Tech Collaboration Can Bridge the Justice Gap — from law.com by Kelli Raker and Maya Markovich “Technology, when thoughtfully developed and implemented, has the potential to expand access to legal services significantly,” write Kelli Raker and Maya Markovich.
Challenges and Concerns Despite the potential benefits, legal aid organizations face several hurdles in working with new technologies:
1. Funding and incentives: Most funding for legal aid is tied to direct legal representation, leaving little room for investment in general case management or exploration of innovative service delivery methods to exponentially scale impact.
2. Jurisdictional inconsistency: The lack of a unified court system or standardized forms across regions makes it challenging to develop accurate and widely applicable tech solutions in certain types of matters.
3. Organizational capacity: Many legal aid organizations lack the time and resources to thoroughly evaluate new tech offerings or collaboration opportunities or identify internal workflows and areas of unmet need with the highest chance for impact.
4. Data privacy and security: Legal aid providers need assurance that tech protects client data and avoids misuse of sensitive information.
5. Ethical considerations: There’s significant concern about the accuracy of information produced by consumer-facing technology and the potential for inadvertent unauthorized practice of law.
Legal: Historically resistant to tech, the legal industry ($350 million in enterprise AI spend) is now embracing generative AI to manage massive amounts of unstructured data and automate complex, pattern-based workflows. The field broadly divides into litigation and transactional law, with numerous subspecialties. Rooted in litigation, Everlaw* focuses on legal holds, e-discovery, and trial preparation, while Harvey and Spellbook are advancing AI in transactional law with solutions for contract review, legal research, and M&A. Specific practice areas are also targeted AI innovations: EvenUp focuses on injury law, Garden on patents and intellectual property, Manifest on immigration and employment law, while Eve* is re-inventing plaintiff casework from client intake to resolution.
CodeSignal, an AI tech company, has launched Conversation Practice, an AI-driven platform to help learners practice critical workplace communication and soft skills.
Conversation Practice uses multiple AI models and a natural spoken interface to simulate real-world scenarios and provide feedback.
The goal is to address the challenge of developing conversational skills through iterative practice, without the awkwardness of peer role-play.
What I learned about this software changed my perception about how I can prepare in the future for client meetings. Here’s what I’ve taken away from the potential use of this software in a legal practice setting:
I see the shift to cloud-based digital systems, especially for small and midsized law firms, as evening the playing field by providing access to robust tools that can aid legal services. Here are some examples of how legal professionals are leveraging tech every day:
Cloud-based case management solutions. These help enhance productivity through collaboration tools and automated workflows while keeping data secure.
E-discovery tools. These tools manage vast amounts of data and help speed up litigation processes.
Artificial intelligence. AI has helped automate tasks for legal professionals including for case management, research, contract review and predictive analytics.
Google’s worst nightmare just became reality. OpenAI didn’t just add search to ChatGPT – they’ve launched an all-out assault on traditional search engines.
It’s the beginning of the end for search as we know it.
Let’s be clear about what’s happening: OpenAI is fundamentally changing how we’ll interact with information online. While Google has spent 25 years optimizing for ad revenue and delivering pages of blue links, OpenAI is building what users actually need – instant, synthesized answers from current sources.
The rollout is calculated and aggressive: ChatGPT Plus and Team subscribers get immediate access, followed by Enterprise and Education users in weeks, and free users in the coming months. This staged approach is about systematically dismantling Google’s search dominance.
Open for AI: India Tech Leaders Build AI Factories for Economic Transformation — from blogs.nvidia.com Yotta Data Services, Tata Communications, E2E Networks and Netweb are among the providers building and offering NVIDIA-accelerated infrastructure and software, with deployments expected to double by year’s end.