It has been an extraordinary month in the world of tech and if you are a legal tech vendor who is not announcing a GPT integration, whether GPT is relevant or not, what the hell are you doing?
March saw Microsoft unveil Copilot, which combines the power of AI models including OpenAI’s large language model GPT-4 with business data and Microsoft 365 apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. Users will also be able to surface and analyse information from across their calendar, emails, meetings, and contacts, using natural language commands. While Microsoft has had a clear strategy around generative AI for years, and this is an evolution of the many advances introduced to date, the speed at which it has worked is quite something, and the legal tech sector is talking about little else.
There are a couple of observations I’d like to make here. One is that I have included in this newsletter most of the GPT integrations announced in the last little while, but I would urge vendors and buyers to consider whether GPT is necessary. The head of technology at a global firm pointed out to me recently that if you don’t need to use GPT, then it’s an expensive option and not great for the planet. If there is a perfectly good solution available, do that.
Secondly, the tailspin that the legal sector is in suggests an element of strategy by press release. It has been clear since 2021 that generative AI was a topic that law firms had to pay attention to. The pace of change makes it difficult for anyone to stay on top of developments, but law firms need programmes around consistent learning, not mad panics around Microsoft announcements.
In the interest of transparency, I’ve been fairly remiss in not including details of the launch of Google’s chatbot Bard this month, but suffice to say it hasn’t taken the industry by storm. At the time of going to press, Google was in full denial that it has trained Bard on ChatGPT data. We will bring you more content on Bard on the website in the coming weeks.
If you missed the very recent news that global tech leaders have demanded a pause in the development of AI beyond GPT-4, you can catch up on it in this newsletter, as well as details of the UK government’s plans for AI regulation. Have I said the word AI enough yet?
If you have yet to read my ‘cutting through the noise’ interview with AI expert and law professor Daniel Katz, who teaches a variety of courses at Illinois Tech Chicago Kent College, and is director of The Law Lab at Illinois Tech, you’ll find that article in this newsletter too. Dan explains why GPT/other large language models are the real deal; what has changed to enable AI to finally be truly viable in legal tech solutions; and what you can expect to see coming down the track.
In the meantime, we bring you a ton of other non-AI legal tech wins, deals, and announcements this month. Enjoy!
Caroline Hill