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Thomson Reuters launches next generation of GenAI assistant in Australia
Legal technology provider Thomson Reuters has continued to expand upon its AI strategy, launching the next generation of CoCounsel, its professional-grade GenAI assistant, in five different markets, including Australia.
Lauren Croft
The next generation of CoCounsel is now available across Thomson Reuters’ flagship solutions: Westlaw Precision, Practical Law, and ONESOURCE.
Customers in Australia and New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan, south-east Asia, and the United Arab Emirates now have access to the generative AI (GenAI) assistant, which enables firms to accelerate growth by making more informed decisions, streamlining entire workflows, and saving time.
CoCounsel helps to pinpoint key knowledge in vast databases, thoroughly communicate sophisticated information, and complete essential work with speed – and is built on a combination of trusted legal content, decades of AI and more than 4,500 domain experts.
Thomson Reuters managing director of Asia and emerging markets Vishal Bali said that CoCounsel combines the strengths of leading LLMs, enabling professionals to glean the greatest value from GenAI.
“It’s predicted that GenAI is set to free up 12 hours per week for professionals within the next five years. To make this a reality, professionals need to trust that AI will perform to the same standards they expect from their peers,” he said.
“We are creating a connected ecosystem where customers can access the best cutting-edge technology, trusted content, and human expertise to drive real value in their businesses today and prepare for tomorrow with confidence. The significant internationalisation and integration of CoCounsel across our legal, tax and compliance product portfolio demonstrates that commitment.”
Newly released features in the latest version of CoCounsel mean the assistant will work three times faster than the first generation, operate more intuitively and understand documents better, deliver more thorough, nuanced results, be accessible from within Thomson Reuters products and Microsoft 365 and integrate with data storage solutions iManage, NetDocuments, and SharePoint, as well as offer capabilities to automate the review of potentially millions of documents at once.
It also includes the newly launched Search and Summarise Practical Law capability, which answers natural-language queries with a synthesised response and provides tailored resources to help customers confidently move forward. Further CoCounsel integrations across the Thomson Reuters legal suite are planned for this year, including HighQ.
Thomson Reuters is also combining the trusted content in ONESOURCE with CoCounsel to augment professionals’ work. The offering combines CoCounsel with a new AI product: Support Skill, which gives ONESOURCE customers “how-to” guidance on complex compliance tasks and offers instant access to relevant answers.
CoCounsel capabilities have so far been incorporated into ONESOURCE Indirect Tax and Direct Tax solutions, with further tax and trade solutions arriving later in 2025.
The Ascott general counsel Dennis Tuan-Mu said the transformative impact of AI in the legal industry will only continue throughout 2025.
“For as long as legal teams have existed, there has been a chasm between the demand for legal expertise and the time available to deliver it. AI is bridging that gap and changing the game. As a leader in accommodation and franchising, our legal team’s ability to deliver strategic guidance to facilitate Ascott and Quest’s rapid growth is imperative,” he said.
“We are currently working closely with Thomson Reuters to develop a customised legal platform that will enable our legal professionals to make faster, smarter decisions backed by accurate and relevant insights.”
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.
