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70 F or years, law firm intranets served mainly as digital bulletin boards where users quickly accessed policies, menus, and links before moving on. Useful? Yes. Strategic? No. If matters moved and bills went out, few firms stopped to ask a deeper question: Is our intranet the digital and information foundation of the firm's work? We are now in the AI era, and the way firms think about "the intranet" is shifting- from a place where you go to find things to a digital workspace where information is surfaced for you to use AI to get things done. This shift changes everything about how we should be thinking about knowledge, governance, and risk. Most firms are cautiously excited about AI, but what is notable is where that experimentation is happening. There has been the creation of AI committees, digital workspace-based pilot programs, and prompt playground sessions built directly into the digital workspace. As firms experiment, many are discovering an uncomfortable truth. AI is not creating brand new problems; it is exposing the ones firms have lived with for years, including: • Fragmented content scattered across systems • Inconsistent or unclear governance • Big silos of disconnected tools that do not talk to each other • No real ownership of knowledge and process These issues are not stopping firms from functioning, but they do stop firms from safely and reliably using information in a digital workspace and AI at scale. What used to be mild inefficiencies have become structural and strategic risks THE CHECK ENGINE LIGHT Think of a firm as a car on the highway. As it hums along, matters move, but warning signs appear- missed handoffs, outdated sources of truth, and workarounds that quietly become the standard. You do not stop addressing the situation because you do not have to. But the longer the check engine light stays on and is ignored, the higher the risk. With AI in the mix, the more weight -- data, tools, workflows, expectations- you put on an uncertain foundation, the greater the chance something critical fails at exactly the wrong moment. That is where many firms are now. The problem is not a lack of innovation, tools, or desire. It is whether the digital workspace is ready to support what AI needs. AI EXPOSES THE CRACKS, THE DIGITAL WORKSPACE REPAIRS THEM This is where the conversation must move beyond "What AI tool should we buy?" to "What kind of environment does AI need to operate safely and effectively inside our firm?" It is crucial to understand that a digital workspace is no longer just a collection of tools. It is a user interface layer where lawyers go THE DIGITAL WORKSPACE PLAYS A STRATEGIC ROLE IN AN AI WORLD FEATURES BY APRIL HEIMERL

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