What Legal Leaders Are Learning About Making AI Work

At Axiom's Q3 Legal Leaders' Breakfast, I spent the morning with a group of in-house legal leaders talking through the question that seems to come up in every legal department planning conversation right now: How do we get real value from AI?

The discussion covered a lot of ground, and the group was open about what is working and what still is not. The view that shaped the rest of the conversation was that AI changes how legal services are designed and delivered. That makes it a much bigger undertaking than a technology purchase, and it explains why so many teams are finding that licenses alone don’t move the needle.

The teams seeing the best results share a few habits. They start with a specific business problem. They simplify the underlying workflow before automating it. They build controls into day-to-day practice. And perhaps most importantly, they invest in their people.