Recently, I attended the Enterprise GC Summit in London. Now in its sixth year, the two-day event brought together General Counsel from globally renowned organisations, providing an open forum to discuss some of the trends and issues impacting legal professionals and their businesses today.

In Discussion with proSapient: Supercharging Your Legal Team with AI

During the summit, I was delighted to be joined on stage by Connagh McCormick, Global General Counsel at proSapient, for a fireside chat about proSapient’s journey to AI adoption and the impact Luminance’s AI has made on his legal team’s workflow.

Connagh was quick to point out that the current economic climate means every business function is having to justify expenditure to their C-suite more than ever. Connagh talked through how his legal team built a strong business case for AI, detailing the need for a one-stop-shop solution that would connect the department with all other arms of the business. This would help proSapient’s lean legal team better respond to growing efficiency pressures and regulatory challenges as the business rapidly scaled and broke into new markets. I found it interesting to hear how proSapient’s implementation of Luminance has actually enabled the rationalisation of other legal costs: “the cost of new hires can now be justified even more because their time would be spent on value-add work rather than monotonous tasks, generating value for the business.”

We also spoke about some of the ways that Luminance’s AI has been used by proSapient to respond rapidly to urgent business or legal issues. For instance, when the legal team was tasked with finding all contracts linked to Russian entities last March, they used Luminance to complete the time-sensitive project. What would have been a huge task to conduct manually, likely consisting of combing through contracts for any mention of Russian businesses, locations, or legal structures, was conducted within just one hour in Luminance. Similarly, when a member of Sales recently asked which customers had a specific clause in their contract relating to the roll-out of a new product, Connagh’s team was able to collate this information within 5 minutes rather than reviewing an Excel spreadsheet line by line. As Connagh explained, by helping proSapient’s legal team to answer pressing business questions more efficiently, Luminance is “turning Legal from a cost centre to a business enabler.”

Steps for Adoption and Rollout of AI

Later at the conference, I was delighted to be joined by several business leaders for a roundtable discussion, during which we delved deeper into their experiences with technology. I was interested to see the conversation was quick to turn to the issue of sourcing ‘true’ AI in an increasingly crowded market. We exchanged practical tips to guide businesses in their search for an AI provider and ensure the effective socialisation of the technology:

1. Establish clear parameters for what you want from a technology to guide the process, whether that’s centralising all your documents to gain comprehensive insight, automating workflows or expediting the review of standardised high-volume agreements.

2. Consider how a technology is going to integrate with your existing tech stack. If you want to make the roll-out process as smooth as possible, any new platforms should complement existing processes in place and fill the gaps in incumbent tech stacks, such as CLMs.

3. Check whether the AI is instantly deployable – if the technology requires intensive pre-programming and lengthy implementation periods, it’s most likely a rules-based system rather than true AI. This means this so-called ‘AI’ isn’t going to actively learn through continued use or adapt to changing standards within your business.

Future-Gazing

So where are we headed? Some attendees explained how their perceptions have evolved in recent years, particularly with the advent of rapidly evolving generative AI platforms. With the latest AI advancements making media headlines at the moment, everyone was in agreement that next-generation technology is here to stay, and that in-house teams need to adapt and keep an open mind in order to remain on the front foot.

Interested in joining Jaeger at her next conference or seminar? Click here to learn more about our upcoming events.