Peer to Peer: ILTA's Quarterly Magazine
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/1544492
P E E R T O P E E R M A G A Z I N E ยท S P R I N G 2 0 2 6 93 H ave you ever sat in a meeting with a business partner, a stakeholder, or anyone else with control over your career trajectory and been asked, "Why did we spend so much time and money on something that no one in this organization is using?" While we try to avoid it, this scenario plays out frequently in the realm of legal technology. To complicate the equation, what happens when that technology involves machines that simulate human intelligence and perform tasks typically done by people, in an industry that runs on specialized knowledge and billable hours? By now, we have all heard stories of how artificial intelligence ("AI") can change the world for better or for worse: attorneys submitting hallucination-filled briefs to the courts, news organizations using imaginary reporters to draft articles, computer chipmakers becoming the world's most valuable companies, and pioneers in AI winning the Nobel Prize in physics. It has been over three years since AI large language models stormed into our collective consciousness with the release of Open AI's ChatGPT, generating a viral sense of wonder and possibility. Yet, there is still a lingering perception that the transformative nature of this technology may be overshadowed by "hallucinations" and other barriers that hinder adoption. Setting aside the overlapping and sometimes confusing varieties of AI -- machine learning, deep learning, generative AI, agentic AI, and beyond -- it is safe to say that attorneys should be less concerned with whether to use AI and more concerned with how to use AI. According to the Thomson Reuters 2026 AI in Professional Services Report, organizational use of generative artificial intelligence ("GenAI") has nearly doubled in the last 12 months, with 40% of surveyed professionals saying their organizations are using GenAI, up from 22% last year. Arguably, it is too late to be an AI "early adopter" in the legal industry; that ship has already sailed. But it is certainly not too late to incorporate AI into professional workflows and business strategy to start deriving immense benefits. That begs the question: how do lawyers and legal technologists move past the hype of AI and implement it in a way that works?