Ken Crutchfield, following his first experience with a Waymo autonomous vehicle, draws insightful parallels between the early challenges faced by autonomous vehicles and the current frontier facing legal technology with agentic AI. Crutchfield, who has extensive experience at LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, and Wolters Kluwer, argues that legal tech can learn vital lessons from Waymo’s deployment to guide the integration of AI agents in legal settings.
In his column for LawNext, Crutchfield discusses the similarities in navigating the complexities of real-world deployment of both technologies. Legal firms are hastily embracing agentic AI to enhance their service delivery. However, the transition is fraught with challenges reminiscent of those tackled by autonomous vehicle developers. Waymo, as part of Google’s broader AI ecosystem, spent years perfecting the art of decision-making in complex environments, a discipline in which legal tech is still in its infancy.
The article underscores the need for strategic handling of AI deployment, managing stakeholder expectations, and preparing for unexpected hurdles. As showcased in the guest post, understanding the historical trajectory and operational strategies of companies like Waymo could provide law firms and tech developers with a pragmatic framework to tackle similar evolutionary phases in AI.