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I f there was a slowdown in interest in AI towards the end of the 2010s, this has been reversed in the most dramatic fashion in the 2020s. 2021 saw the unveiling of DALL-E, a deep learning model developed by OpenAI to generate digital images from text prompts. Late 2022 saw the introduction of ChatGPT, which generates human-like responses from text prompts, through a chatbot interface. ChatGPT has caught the hearts and minds of many within the legal technology space, with many starting to explore the potential use cases of this powerful technology in legal. To the extent any law firms started to lose interest in AI, the work being done in the generative AI space will undoubtedly reverse this trend. Keep focusing on the value, problems and use cases As legal technologists, we get excited by these new possibilities, and we rush to explore them. However, we should not let our own personal interests interfere with what should be the ultimate goal: to deliver value to business, clients, lawyers and others. A law firm leader ignores emerging technologies at their peril. But in doing so, they should not waver on their commitment to strategies that can deliver that value, such as discovering the key pain points and problems we need to solve for. It is curious that when an exciting new technology comes along – such as blockchain or generative AI – this analysis sometimes changes. Sometimes, we forget about analyzing problems and throw tools out there to see where they land. Other times, the question "how can we deliver value" morphs into a different question, namely "how can we deliver value using this particular piece of technology". Both approaches potentially distract from the ultimate goal, which is not to deploy technology, but to deploy technology in order to achieve something. Of course, new technologies can unlock new possibilities in how to tackle previously unsolvable problems, or how to tackle already-solved problems in a better way. But we should always focus on what is most valuable to solve, not on things that are solvable merely because a new technology has come onto the scene. The change brought by an AI solution Anybody who has led the deployment of any solution in a legal team or law firm will know that getting lawyers and others to change is not easy. In particular, the nature of the change must be communicated clearly along with the positive changes that it brings people. In law firms particularly, there are still challenges around how tools that bring efficiencies interplay with the traditional billable hour business model. In the early days of AI contract review tools for due diligence purposes, some organizations managed change by focusing on the underlying technology. They would tell lawyers about the advanced AI capabilities of the tool 25 I L T A N E T . O R G "The ultimate goal is not to deploy technology, but to deploy technology in order to achieve something."

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