Cost savings and the automation of basic tasks are the top two reasons why legal teams have adopted generative AI, according to findings from the study “Generative AI in Legal 2024.”
Fifty-eight percent of the study respondents said that automation was the main benefit of AI use, and 48 percent cited cost savings. In general, the use of generative AI in the profession has ticked up in the past two years – 48 percent of respondents said they used it in their day-to-day activities, and 69 percent said that its use in legal tasks was expected to go up in the next two years. Only 3 percent of respondents said they toned down their use of AI.
Generative AI has mainly been used for contract analysis and legal research, but document review is expected to top the list this year. Eighty-nine percent indicated they were either “very comfortable” or “somewhat comfortable” using generative AI for document review.
Large organizations recorded the biggest increase in generative AI use, as organizations with more than a thousand employees reported a near-50 percent increase. Meanwhile, small organizations indicated a high interest in being able to automate basic tasks.
In addition, law firms maintaining the billable hour model were more likely to already adopt generative AI (59 percent) than firms using task-based billing (42 percent).
AI concerns
However, the use of generative AI in investigations, witness preparation, and data privacy compliance was a strong area of concern.
The ethical, responsible, and effective use of AI was the main priority for respondents, with 78 percent indicating that they focused on robust AI governance capabilities. Next, they focused on the clarity of AI principles.
“The study data on AI policies and governance indicate generative AI is not replacing human legal teams any time soon as legal professionals must ensure ethical and responsible use of AI. The study findings on legal use cases over the next five years do, however, suggest generative AI will be a valuable tool for a wide variety of legal tasks,” said David Horrigan, discovery counsel and legal education director at legal tech company Relativity, in a media release.
Nonetheless, the vulnerability of sensitive and confidential data, as well as data bias/poor-quality data, were significant concerns for respondents. Respondents in the Asia–Pacific region focused more on the effect of generative AI on data privacy and information governance. In contrast, respondents in Europe and North America showed greater interest in AI’s impact on legal analysis/contract analysis augmentation and assistance.
“The findings demonstrate that the impact of generative AI on the legal field from November 2022 to today is not a mere temporary fascination, but something that will have a transformative effect on legal teams over the next two to five years,” Horrigan said.
The IDC InfoBrief Generative AI in Legal 2024 was commissioned by Relativity to look into the growing use of generative AI in the legal sector. The global study’s survey respondents included lawyers, paralegals, legal operations professionals, and legal IT professionals from law firms, corporations, and government agencies across Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the US.