David Aird is IT director at UK top 50 law firm DAC Beachcroft and has been in the role for 11 years.
As part of our series of end-of-year conversations with senior IT leaders, he told Legal IT Insider: “I think I’m going to call 2024 the year of realism and in 2025 we’re going to see the real use of AI.”
Aird co-hosted an IT head and knowledge leader meeting with Legal IT Insider a year ago to discuss the challenges facing the industry and progress made to date. Aird said: “We met a year ago and I think everyone was very enthusiastic, mixed with some realism as well. I don’t think we’re in Gartner’s trough of depression but what has happened is that things are taking longer to take flight.
“We’re seeing lots of hallucinations issues with things and we’re beginning to get used to the tools, what they can do, what they can’t do, and some of the challenges of it.”
While there are pockets where DAC is using Copilot and other tools, Aird said: “We haven’t yet seen the widespread use of AI that some people thought we might see in 2024.”
Looking to the immediate future, Aird thinks that we will more specific and targeted use of AI “where we can use AI reliably.” He says: “We’re beginning to see what it is good at and what it’s not so good at and combine that with the humans, which was probably always inevitable.”
DAC Beachcroft is working with an external consultancy to help it with its tool selection strategy and Aird said: “I think we have all got carried away with the tools rather than what’s the problem you’re trying to solve.”