07 December 2022 | Luminance, the world’s most advanced AI for legal process automation, today announced cutting-edge developments to the machine learning models that underpin its award-winning technology. The application of this R&D work to Luminance’s core intelligence, the Legal Inference Transformation Engine (LITE), will further enhance Luminance’s conceptual understanding of legal documentation, making it the most advanced legal language model today.

The new AI models that underpin Luminance’s AI use state-of-the-art techniques in Natural Language Processing called Transformers. This is the same core technology that powers recent developments in image generation AI such as DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, and is also used by voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri for natural language recognition. Transformers are superbly suited to the task of identifying anomalies and areas of non-compliance in contracts due to the unparalleled level of contextual understanding that they provide. Rather than examining text word-by-word, these models have a close understanding of what each word means in the context of a full sentence. In this way, Luminance’s ability to read and understand the written word is more sophisticated than ever before.

Much like the human brain, a Transformer model can distinguish between different uses of the same word depending on the context in which they are written. For example, Luminance can discern the implications of the words following the word “term” in “the term of the contract is five years” versus “the term of the contract shall remain in effect indefinitely”. This is of critical importance for effective contract review, allowing Luminance to identify subtleties in language that pose legal risk.

Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance, said: “This is yet another milestone in Luminance’s growth. The strength of Luminance’s underlying technical architecture means that our R&D team in Cambridge can continually develop and apply the latest machine learning techniques to the ‘real world’ problems faced by lawyers today.

These Transformer models will significantly expand upon Luminance’s existing understanding of contracts, meaning our 500-strong customer base can expect to see unparalleled results when assessing areas of risk and compliance during contract negotiations, and when conducting legal document reviews. To have developed these pioneering AI models in-house is a testament to the strength of Luminance’s R&D and our commitment to providing our customers with the most robust and sophisticated AI in the market.”

In recognition of its continued investment into research and development, Luminance was named ‘Innovative Company of the Year’ at the highly prestigious Institute of Engineering and Technology’s E&T Innovation Awards this month. Founded by world-leading mathematicians from the University of Cambridge, Luminance has also been named a ‘Technology Pioneer’ by the World Economic Forum, a ‘Future Fifty’ company by Tech Nation and was awarded the Queen’s Award for Innovation.

ENDS

About Luminance

Luminance is the world’s most advanced AI technology for the legal processing of contracts and documents. Founded by mathematicians from the University of Cambridge, Luminance’s AI reads and forms a conceptual understanding of documents in any language. Luminance uses this understanding to augment the spectrum of legal matters, from AI-powered contract drafting, negotiation and review to investigations and eDiscovery. Luminance is trusted by over 500 customers in 60 countries, including all of the Big Four consultancy firms, a quarter of the world’s largest law firms and multinational organisations.