At this year’s CLOC Global Institute, the energy around AI was unmistakable.
Every vendor had an AI angle. Some even claimed they were now “AI native,” meaning their product started off with AI – even though the company’s been around for fifteen years.
Booths were covered in AI branding, and nearly every demo was framed around how machine intelligence was changing the game.
But dig a little deeper than their marketing slogans, and things looked a lot different.
That means in-house teams will need to be more vigilant about their AI vendor selection.
The same old AI story
Most vendors were clearly early in their AI journey, bolting on features, repackaging old functionality, and doing just enough to stay in the conversation.
In many cases, the AI pitch was more cosmetic than strategic.
That’s creating a noisy, confusing market where it’s hard for legal teams to distinguish between incremental improvements and true evolutionary transformations.
A disappointing pattern emerged across vendors at CLOC: AI is being pitched predominantly as a tool for self-service and time savings. The core story is still about efficiency — doing more, faster. That’s valuable, but these days, it’s also table stakes.
What was missing in most of these conversations was a bolder vision: Using AI to reimagine how legal work gets done, not just speed it up.
Right now, legal tech is embracing the hype of AI but struggling with the reality.
Many platforms face hard questions about their ability to adapt both technically and from a business model perspective.
Legacy infrastructure, complex workflows, and monolithic systems make it difficult to move quickly or natively support AI-first approaches. But that’s exactly what’s needed.
The AI revolution in legal tech isn’t about layering intelligence on top of old systems. It’s about changing the relationship users have with technology altogether.
AI co-worker > AI chatbot
Over the next 12 - 24 months, we’ll see a shift in how users engage with platforms. Traditional UIs and rigid workflows will fade into the background. Instead, we’ll interact with legal systems through intelligent, conversational interfaces — ones that:
- Remember context
- Orchestrate tasks across systems
- Proactively surface insights when we need them
Systems of record will become silent engines in the background, powering decisions but no longer being the place where work gets done.
The chatbot of today will soon be more of a continuous, independent AI-coworker at your side (wherever you may be).
The AI landscape is changing fast. What seems innovative today may just be a stepping stone toward something radically different tomorrow. What matters most is vision.
For legal departments looking to stay ahead of the AI curve, the key is to look beyond features and ask:
- Are your vendors thinking two steps ahead?
- Are they building for the transition, or reacting to it?
- Are they evolving your workflow, or just speeding it up?
At PERSUIT, AI isn’t just about changing how you do things. We’re re-imagining how technology and legal teams can work in concert to drive greater enterprise value.
If you’re curious to learn more, don’t wait until CLOC 2026, drop me a note today (but only if you’re ready for true innovation, no AI imposters here).
