Of all the demos I’ve seen, quite honestly very few of them result in a genuine if a little cheesy sounding “wow”, but Zero, which embeds machine learning into mobile devices and Outlook to file and manage emails, is one.
Officially launching this week ahead of ILTA, Zero automates the filing of emails potentially in seconds into the document management system using machine learning and NLP to identify the correct matter.
Perhaps it’s because I was once a lawyer and still operate my email account like one (ie badly) that this tool resonates so strongly, but it’s frickin awesome.
Zero, which has a lawyer-friendly interface, flags emails that aren’t answered, and deadlines that need to be hit. It also incorporates security features to help avoid misaddressed emails. And it silently in the background (see image below) tracks and auto-creates time transactions (including narratives) for client work done on mobile devices.
That ticks a few boxes in terms of competition but the primary contenders are NetDocuments’ matter-based email management system ndMail and iManage’s encrypted email management solution and given more time we’ll compare the functionality of each.
The initial release of Zero for Desktop is fully integrated with both the iManage and NetDocuments platforms.
Inbox Zero is a technique developed by writer and podcaster Merlin Mann and refers to clearing your inbox everyday. Ordinarily that would make me fall around with laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of the idea. But perhaps it’s becoming more of a reality for us lawyer types. The one issue the company may face is searchability – the name ‘Zero’ combined with ‘email’ brings up a heap of unrelated hits.
In another big announcement, industry veteran Ryan Steadman, most recently director of business development and customer value engineer at Tikit, has joined Zero’s executive team as chief revenue officer and in a statement out later today (16 August) Alex Babin, CEO of Zero says: “For several years, Ryan has worked closely with a number of early-stage AI vendors to address a variety of legal business processes. In addition to driving revenue, he will help shape our product roadmap to tackle the business challenges experienced by law firms. We’re delighted he’s joining the team.”
Peter Darling, formerly director of NextSpace Coworking and founder of professional services advisory firm Repechage Group, joined in January as chief marketing officer.
After years of engineering research, ILTACON 2018 represents Zero’s official debut. You can learn more in advance by watching this three-minute clip. And as always, please give us your feedback on the product. https://www.zeroapp.ai/
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