Document AI in legal – Sci-fi or reality?

Remember watching Hollywood sci-fi films representing AI and robots? These films were so “out there”, and viewed purely for entertainment. Today technology has advanced to such an extent that there are humanoid robots. Likewise, Darren Aronofsky’s next film – Mother! - is an AI courtroom drama. With the pace at which technology is advancing, perhaps the idea of a real-life AI courtroom drama may not be that far off the realms of reality. 

The friendly legal AI invasion

Ok, let’s not get ahead of ourselves! But recent research - Fast law: why speed is the priority for lawyers using A - shows that in the legal industry, the use of AI is well on its way. 41% of legal professionals are already using AI for work, up from just 11% in July last year. Also, increasingly very few lawyers are able to resist AI’s charms – those with no plans to adopt AI have dropped from 61% to a mere 15%. 

As the adoption of AI technology gathers momentum, this technology bring its own challenges. There are concerns around ethics, security, and data protection – all the stuff that keeps the C-suite up at night. For example, large language model (LLM) applications can expand organisations’ attack surface, and enhance criminals’ ability to unleash cybersecurity strikes with ever-increasing accuracy. 

Don’t ignore the AI FOMO 

But do you know what? Despite these challenges, no organisation can afford to ignore AI and generative AI adoption. Fact! These technologies are poised to play a transformative role across industries – from recruitment, healthcare, and professional services to retail, logistics, and travel. 

Organisations not considering AI adoption instantly put themselves at a competitive disadvantage. AI promises numerous benefits – innovation, operational efficiencies, elimination of manual effort, reduced human error in administrative processes, and better human resource utilisation, among many others. There is also the issue of market perception. In a fast-paced, technology-led world, appearing outdated and behind the times could be business suicide. Potentially, it’s a bit like choosing a typewriter over a computer.

Employees are using AI, don’t wait for the rebellion

On a personal level, employees already see the value of AI. Organisations that are reluctant to adopt these technologies enterprise-wide will soon find ‘Shadow AI’ proliferating in their business. Getting impatient, employees are already sneakily starting to use AI tools to remove the grunt work from their workflows – much like we have seen historically. Remember Gmail, mobile, and cloud services from not that long ago? 

The key to successful AI adoption lies in the controlled, authorised, and governed use of the technology. 

Top-notch data – the first step towards AI adoption

Before jumping on the AI bandwagon, it’s worth remembering that data is THE foundation of AI and generative AI. Organisations need a solid data infrastructure to ensure that their AI is being fed with the best input, not random data from here and there – and most definitely not data from unauthorised and unvetted sources. That’s what ChatGPT does! This will then ensure that the data is grounded in accuracy and relevancy for the organisations using AI technologies.

With the right data in the right place, AI tools are needed for that information to be analysed, classified, and enriched.

• See the new iManage AI features to help streamline document and email management for legal professionals

iManage AI Enrichment - the tireless librarian - AI document classification

iManage AI Enrichment is an AI-powered document classification tool. It uses AI to automatically (without additional user input) classify 100s of documents by type, extract important information points, and then save that data with the respective documents in the iManage document management system (DMS). It’s like a tireless intern or librarian who is constantly analysing, classifying, and extracting important information from documents – day and night. 

The outcome? Over time, a dynamic library of documents builds, enabling lawyers to not just identify documents they need, but also unearth insights and gain context for the information they have surfaced. 

This isn’t all, AI Enrichment has two further important benefits. One, AI Enrichment automatically scales, methodically analysing and classifying as new documents and data are added. Consequently, the data backbone is continuously expanding and strengthening – without input and effort from users. They don’t have to lift a finger! Secondly, organisations position themselves well to implement a host of other third-party AI tools. These other AI tools will be more effective as they too will deliver better output, drawing from an enriched pool of accurate and up-to-date information. 

Crucially, iManage AI Enrichment meaningfully supports security and governance, enabling organisations to undertake all the necessary safety measures to ensure that they are complying with the numerous data protection laws, based on the jurisdictions they are operating in. The tool provides context about documents and data as part of the classification process. So, it’s easy for users to surface documents that contain sensitive and confidential information, and take the necessary action to ensure data protection and compliance. 

This kind of enriched classification is indispensable to enhance the accuracy of search results and in turn, improve the productivity of users. It is well acknowledged that legal professionals spend inordinate time searching for information – case histories, reports and summaries, precedents, and so forth – as part of their day-to-day activity – which is sometimes frustratingly to no avail!

Ask iManage – lawyers’ new best friend, well, AI assistant

This isn’t all. With a strong underpinning data foundation, organisations become well-placed to adopt generative AI in a manner that delivers value. Meet Ask iManage, a personal natural language AI assistant – aka lawyers’ new best friend or maybe a super-smart intern or paralegal who can probe documents, extract pertinent information and data points, and have a full-blown, back-and-forth witty banter until the lawyer has what they are looking for. 

Even better, lawyers can ask their “new best friend” to summarise lengthy legal documents, incorporating specific data points that must be included in the summary. Ask iManage is smart – the tool can even draw summaries from groups of documents that run into 100s of pages too. Should the lawyer want to query the results, not one to be outsmarted, Ask iManage will provide the source and evidence of the information in question too. 

Want AI for legal?

AI Enrichment and Ask iManage are services offered as part of iManage AI, which is genuinely the fastest, smoothest, and safest route to implementing AI and generative AI technologies. Delivered as part of the iManage platform, the services can be used as part of legal professionals’ day-to-day workflow – with a need for minimal user training, if any. It’s that intuitive. 

It’s yours if you want it! 

See also:

• New iManage AI features for legal professionals
• Legal AI: What's driving adoption?

FAQs

What is document AI?

Document AI refers to the use of artificial intelligence technologies, such as machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), to automatically process, analyse, and extract information from documents. Document AI systems can handle various types of documents, including contracts, invoices, emails, legal agreements, and more. iManage AI can help automate tasks like data extraction, document classification, metadata generation, and understanding content, reducing the manual effort needed to manage and analyse large volumes of documents. 

Is there an AI that can create documents?

Yes, there are many, but legal professionals be cautious. Whilst AI can create legal documents through generative tools, automating tasks like contract drafting, the risks include inaccurate or incomplete content, lack of human judgment, data privacy concerns, regulatory non-compliance, and ethical issues such as biased output. Over-reliance on AI may also lead to deskilling among legal professionals. Using a dedicated system with AI built in, such as iManage AI, is a safer way to apply AI to your document processes.