Legal teams unclear on whether AI is delivering value, new report says
A new report says most legal departments aren’t measuring the return on their investment into artificial intelligence. (Shutterstock image)
Most legal departments aren’t measuring the return on their investment into artificial intelligence, according to a new report from alternative legal services provider Axiom.
Its findings, which are based on a survey of 528 in-house legal leaders from six countries, show that 83% of legal teams cannot determine whether their spending on AI is paying off. At the same time, only 7% of teams have scaled AI across their organizations.
“Knowing what problem you are solving should be the first step,” Amy O’Connell, general counsel at environmental consulting firm Roux, told Law.com for its coverage of the report. “Too many organizations are adopting AI to avoid being left behind, without analyzing whether the tools advance their goals.”
Axiom’s report affirms that AI in the legal industry “has moved from experiment to everywhere.” All its respondents said their legal teams plan to raise their budgets for AI in the next cycle, while 98% said their teams would benefit from outside guidance on AI.
The success of legal teams that use AI largely depends on implementing effective governance, measuring outcomes and using outside guidance to supplement internal resources, Law.com reports.
“Rigorous evaluation should be nonnegotiable before a legal team commits to an AI tool,” Hiro Oshima, deputy general counsel, Americas, at SMBC Group, an international financial services company, told Law.com.
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