Does Using AI Waive Attorney-Client Privilege?

There’s nothing new about lawyers using tools to work faster. Legal research moved from bound volumes to Lexis and Westlaw, case files moved from cabinets to the cloud, and each shift arrived with someone predicting the end of careful practice. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest step in that progression, and for the most part, it earns its place. It finds information quickly, drafts usable content, analyzes contracts, and speeds document review.

What makes this step different, though, is where the information actually goes. When a lawyer runs a search on Westlaw, nothing about the matter leaves the relationship. When a lawyer pastes a board memo into a public chatbot, something might. For a legal department, the question is not whether privilege exists. If you provide legal advice, it does. The question is whether a tool your team uses can quietly give it away, and whether you understand the tool well enough to know.