In the wake of rising interest in how transformative generative artificial intelligence (AI) could be for the legal sector, an interesting new project has surfaced. Corporate legal departments are currently immersed in the “experimentation” phase of harnessing this technology. The aim is to decipher the most beneficial applications of AI tools, as expressed by Ed Sohn, the global head of insights and innovation at the Factor legal consultancy which operates in the US and Europe. Bloomberg Law reports.
The application of generative AI in the legal world is a hot topic due to its potential to revolutionize workflows. The AI’s capability to synthesize and generate extensive amounts of text is posited to greatly aid lawyers in drafting contracts and briefs, making e-discovery and legal research processes swifter and more efficient.
Intel, for instance, has been applying older AI technologies to tasks such as contract creation and e-discovery. However, generative AI is a new frontier that the company is just beginning to experiment with, according to Mike Haven, head of global legal operations at Intel.
The project, led by Factor and named ‘The Sense Collective’, will gather general counsel and heads of legal operations from companies including Adobe, Ford, Intel, and Microsoft. The group’s discussions will revolve around potential solutions—that provide maximum value to their organizations—in the generative AI space.
The Collective will also approach questions concerning the impact of generative AI on legal departments’ investment decisions. They will study its effects on current initiatives within businesses, exploration of how legal departments advise other divisions within an organization, and finding ways to address the novel questions surrounding AI responsibility and safety. To leverage the direct benefits that the Sense Collective can offer, membership is mandatorily required.
Another topic of concern for the project will be the development of the technology called retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). This tech has the potential to enhance the accuracy of a generative AI tool by asking it to retrieve an answer from within a delimited set of information. Sohn believes that observing such advancements will help track when these technologies cross the frontier from merely hypothetical to ready and productive.