As we count down to the annual Strategic Knowledge and Innovation Legal Leaders’ Summit (SKILLS) on 16 January, the organising committee has unveiled two comprehensive survey reports outlining the 2025 priorities for knowledge and innovation professionals, as well as the progress of generative AI adoption within their organisations.
Taking AI first, two years after the general availability of Large Language Models (LLMs), the results provide insight into these tools’ selection, deployment, and perceived impact, with notable changes across several categories from the 2023 data.
Asked ‘Has your firm licensed a large language model?’ the 2024 data shows that in terms of deployment, OpenAI, Copilot and other public LLMs lead the way (40%), followed by Thomson Reuters Westlaw (32%). A total of 61% of those replying to the survey said they are at various stages of considering, experimenting with or licensing ‘LexisNexis’ (which has GenAI solution Lexis+ AI), however, so far just 12% of respondents said they have deployed it.
The same results show that 23% of respondents have a ‘firm-developed LLM’; 22% have deployed CoCounsel (giving Thomson Reuters a further bite at the cherry); and 20% have deployed Harvey. A further 31% of firms say they have ‘other legal LLMs’ deployed.
Across the board these figures highlight a significant shift from a predominantly experimental approach in 2023. Notably, firms are pursuing a multi-platform strategy, suggesting a sophisticated understanding of how different LLM solutions can address specific operational needs, the report concludes.
The report, which was written by Fringe conference founder and Lupl chief revenue officer Abhijat Saraswat, takes a deeper dive into these results here: https://skills.law/aisurvey25. It also looks at the primary use cases for GenAI (spoiler alert, it’s still summarisation – a more detailed breakdown is in the report); who supports GenAI (largely the innovation team); where the LLM is hosted (interestingly 13% were not sure); plus firm discussions around the impact of LLMs (the majority of firms have discussed the impact with no consensus).
In terms of the general (non-AI-specific) Survey Report, our thanks to SKILLS founder Oz Benamram for the following summary of key priorities for KM and innovation professionals, provided by Google Gemini.
- AI maturation is still the most obvious theme: AI initiatives are projected to grow to 91% in 2025, marking the transition from experimental adoption to strategic implementation.
- Data-Driven Evolution: Data analytics is a key growth area, and planned work will increase to 53% by 2025.
- Client-Centric Innovation: Client-facing KM and innovation initiatives show substantial growth in planned work (a 10% increase).
- Balanced Transformation: Process improvement (54% of respondents) and internal KM/innovation (52%) remain central to operations.
- Traditional KM: Forms and precedents work continues to be a significant operational focus (42% of respondents), but there is notably less interest in discussing these established practices (-19% gap between planned work and discussion interest).
The reports, which received responses primarily from individuals at large law firms in North America and the UK, were editorially reviewed by the SKILLS.law 2025 organising committee: Mary Abraham, Oz Benamram, Lucy Dillon, Ron Friedmann, Nick Pryor, and Kate Simpson.