The Legal IT Innovators Group (Litig) will today (16 May) launch an AI due diligence questionnaire that they hope will drive good practices and governance among vendors that are building AI into their products, we can reveal. It is also hoped that the new questionnaire, which is being made publicly available to all, will drive some degree of standardisation in the procurement process when it comes to AI.
Litig is an independent, not-for-profit UK organisation that supports technology, operations and innovation leaders across the legal sector. Its members represent around 90,000 users and £20bn of turnover. The new questionnaire is the product of member input and legal advice on things like the implications of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act.
Speaking to Legal IT Insider, Litig’s chairman Derek Southall, founder and CEO of Hyperscale Group, said: “The world of AI has exploded and we’ve had a period of experimentation and evolution where we have seen some good practices, but also some poor practices, and this needs to be improved. This questionnaire is designed to flesh out what people are doing and what standards they are operating to for the good of everyone.”
The highly-detailed questionnaire is broken down into six parts: technical and product-related; security and compliance; integration and support; ethical and social impact; financial and contractual; and regulatory risk under the EU AI Act. Within the latter category, the questionnaire addresses multiple factors from whether a supplier’s AI could be used for any purposes that are prohibited in the EU to whether it will interact with natural persons (eg a chatbot).
Any vendor that uses AI in their product – not just generative AI – will be expected to answer the questionnaire as part of a RFP process and Southall said: “This is going to save people a lot of work because after receiving input from our members these are the things we need to know. Otherwise, everyone will be reinventing the wheel each time.”
He adds: “We were just going to do this for Litig but it’s important for everyone to not have to invent the wheel so we’re putting it out there with a disclaimer.”
The questionnaire will initially require a considerable amount of work for vendors, however Southall envisages that it will also mean they can avoid multiple different processes and forms and questions from law firms. “It’s designed to drive better practice and governance and save us all having to do this 50 different times in different ways,” he says.
The questionnaire comes as many law firms feel overwhelmed by the developments around generative AI and Southall said: “We need to understand this because we are being asked by clients and they need to understand because it’s their data. We have to professionalise how we use AI and create better governance or things will go wrong.
Some of the questions will be around whether vendors comply with new standards such as ISO/IEC 42001, which establishes a framework for the management of AI systems within organisations.
The Litig AI Due Diligence Questionnaire can be found on www.litig.org and is available subject to a disclaimer on a no liability basis.
For more information contact dereksouthall@hyperscalegroup.com