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Almost half of all legal practitioners use GenAI day-to-day, new data shows
The majority of the legal profession has reported that their use of GenAI will continue to increase over the next two years, according to new research.
Lauren Croft
According to new data, 49 per cent of legal practitioners across the globe are currently using AI day-to-day, with 69 per cent confirming that their use of AI will increase in the next two years.
These new findings come from the IDC InfoBrief, Generative AI in Legal 2024, commissioned by global legal and compliance technology company Relativity.
The study uncovers the rapid increase of generative AI adoption in the legal field, examining how legal professionals navigate emerging challenges and seize opportunities to drive legal innovation.
According to the findings, half of legal professionals reported overall AI use has increased in the past two years, and only 3 per cent said their use of AI has declined. Almost half (48 per cent) of respondents’ day-to-day AI usage involves generative AI, and 69 per cent indicate their generative AI use for legal tasks will increase in the next two years.
The study surveyed attorneys, paralegals, legal operations professionals and legal IT professionals from law firms, corporations and government agencies across Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Across all regions, automation of basic tasks was reported to be the top reason legal teams use generative AI, with 58 per cent of respondents citing this benefit. Cost savings followed as the second reason, with 48 per cent of respondents citing it.
However, APAC respondents had substantially higher interest than their European and North American counterparts in the impact of generative AI on data privacy and information governance. In contrast, European and North American respondents had more interest in AI’s impact on legal analysis/contract analysis augmentation and assistance, according to the report.
In terms of practically adopting generative AI, 78 per cent of respondents said that the ethical, responsible, and effective use of AI was their number one priority, with clear AI principles ranking as the second most important priority, which David Horrigan, discovery counsel and legal education director at Relativity, said was particularly interesting.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
Larger organisations, according to the findings, are seeing the biggest increase in the usage of this tech, with businesses with more than 1,000 employees reportedly seeing almost a 50 per cent increase.
Further, law firms using billable hours are more likely to already use generative AI than their task-based billing counterparts, at 59 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively. However, the report noted that both law firms using billable hours and firms using task-based billing are interested in using generative AI to automate basic tasks and achieve cost savings.
Moving forward, although contract analysis and legal research currently lead the way in legal professionals’ use of generative AI, document review is projected to become the leading legal task within the year, with 65 per cent of survey respondents planning to use generative AI within one year and 93 per cent planning to use it within five years. Document review was also revealed to be the task legal professionals trust AI to help with the most, with 89 per cent being “very comfortable” or “somewhat comfortable” with its use, according to Ryan O’Leary, research director for privacy and legal technology at IDC and the lead analyst for the study.
“Although US-based technology companies have been leaders in the development of generative AI, the legal industry spans the globe, and, in compiling this research study, we sought to capture how legal professionals around the world are working with and responding to the rise of generative AI,” he said.
“As the study indicates a range of comfort in using generative AI, it does uncover that document review will soon be the leading legal task performed with generative AI – confirming the transformative power of generative AI to the modern legal industry.”
Lauren Croft
Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.
