Tech companies are flooding the legal market with AI features. Most will fail. Here's why: they're building what they think law firms should want, rather than what firms actually need.
Law firms aren't looking for AI revolution - they want evolution. The data is clear: while 34% of attorneys use AI, only 17.5% use it on active matters. This gap between awareness and implementation reveals a crucial product development lesson.
Like Asimov's laws of robotics, successful AI integration follows three fundamental rules:
Focus your AI development on these key areas:
Skip everything else. At least for now.
Legal tech demands enterprise-grade safeguards from the start. Unlike consumer applications, legal technology must maintain comprehensive audit trails, robust version control, clear human oversight mechanisms, and ironclad data protection. These aren't optional features to be added later - they form the foundation of any viable legal tech product. Building these protections into your core architecture saves costly retrofitting and helps prevent security incidents that could damage market trust.
Successful AI in legal tech will be invisible. It won't make headlines. It will simply make things work better, faster, cheaper. Here are your next steps:
The best AI features in legal tech are the ones users don't even notice they're using.