Crossing the AI Chasm: Notes from ACC Annual 2026

Somewhere this week, a consultant is telling a board that AI can take 30% of the legal department’s budget. Down the hall, the general counsel is working out how to pay for an AI rollout that arrived with no money attached.

That gap between what boards are hearing and what legal teams are living with ran through the marquee session I moderated at last week’s Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Annual Meeting in Boston, with Shannon Klinger of Moderna, Carolyn Herzog of Elastic, and Hossein Nowbar of ServiceNow.

Michele Gorman of Law360 Pulse captured the conversation thoughtfully, and I’d encourage you to read her article, linked at the end of this post. Here I want to take the conversation a step further, drawing on what I hear from general counsel as they plan budgets, build their teams, and rethink how they use outside counsel.