AI continues to be one of the most discussed topics across the legal industry. For corporate counsel and legal operations teams, the promise is compelling, yet despite the attention, real-world adoption remains measured and, in many cases, still exploratory.
Recent discussions at IQPC Corporate Counsel & Compliance Exchange bear this out, with many still considering the what, where, and when of how to fit AI into their workflows.
Curiosity Outpacing Deployment
There is little doubt that in-house teams are paying attention. General counsel and legal ops leaders are actively engaging with AI, albeit in a very broad capacity. It’s all that can be discussed at conferences, and it’s beginning to be seen in briefings, in piloting tools, and in the exploration of vendor capabilities. However, this interest has not yet translated into marrying the known challenges with proven use.
Instead, most organisations remain in a discovery phase for AI usage and are asking the fundamental questions:
- Where does GenAI fit within existing legal process?
- What are the clear benefits to the business?
- What problems is it best suited to solve?
- How do we manage risk, accuracy, and accountability?
This reflects a pattern seen with previous technologies, such as bold promises and initial enthusiasm followed by a period of cautious validation before wholesale adoption.
Clear Potential, Limited Standardisation
There is emerging consensus around a handful of high-potential use cases, but few have become standardised across organisations.
Common areas of exploration include:
- High level document review and summarisation (contracts, investigations, and regulatory compliance)
- Knowledge management and legal research augmentation
- Drafting support for routine documents
These use cases align well with the strengths of the tech. Processing and analysing large volumes of text and accelerating repetitive tasks are great examples. However, many legal teams are still determining whether these applications deliver consistent and defensible outcomes in practice.
What we’re seeing as a result is a fragmented landscape. Organisations are running pilots, but repeatable, scaled deployments are still extremely rare.
The Role of Legal Operations
Legal operations teams are playing a critical role in shaping adoption. As the function responsible for efficiency, technology, and vendor management, the legal ops team often leads the evaluation efforts.
However, they face a familiar challenge:
- Budget constraints
- Balancing innovation with caution to form a clear framework for risk management
- Aligning stakeholders across legal, IT, compliance, and the business
- Avoiding “tool proliferation” without clear ROI
This reinforces the need for clear business cases, not just technical capability. Tools that demonstrate measurable impact (time saved, cost reduced, risk mitigated) are far more likely to gain traction.
What Happens Next?
Despite the hype, GenAI is not yet changing how legal functions work, and this should not be a surprise. The tech, despite its personification and beyond its promises, is not a panacea. Instead, and like many technology implementation projects that have gone before, it requires a known problem statement, a well-constructed business case, rigorous evaluation, and education, as well as clear governance and controls.
Old habits die hard, and in summary, organisations need to consider programs of change management before they can expect true enterprise adoption to fully see the benefits the tech has to offer.
Market Reality: Evolution, Not Revolution...Yet
Looking ahead, a few trends are likely to shape the next phase of adoption:
- Shift from generic tools to proven use cases demonstrating value
- Greater emphasis on defensibility and auditability
- Changes to process and working patterns
- Seamless integration into existing workflows rather than standalone tools
- An iterative approach to roll out supported by real-world use cases
Perhaps most importantly, organisations will move from asking “What can GenAI do?” to “Where does it genuinely improve outcomes?”
A Market Still Finding Its Shape
For now, legal teams are certainly not ignoring GenAI, but they are equally not fully embracing it. They are, instead, approaching it with a mix of curiosity and caution.
Adoption is coming, but it will be shaped less by hype and more by trust from use cases and demonstrable benefits.
In many ways, the market is still forming, and the current speed of adoption is not a lag. Rather, it’s a sign of maturity.
Andy Edler
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Andy is VP of Legal Services for TCDI in the UK. He is responsible for the management and development of existing client relationships and the growth of TCDI’s footprint in the legal and corporate market throughout Europe. With over 20 years of experience, Andy has helped major organisations transform operations, minimise cost, improve efficiency, and enhance customer experience with market leading technology and services.
