Two
weeks
after
the
company
formerly
known
as
AffiniPay
unveiled
its
rebranding
as
8am,
it
convened
its
inaugural
Kaleidoscope
customer
conference
in
Austin
today,
where
its
chief
product
officer,
Leslie
Witt,
took
to
the
stage
to
deliver
a
keynote
address
in
which
she
announced
key
platform
integrations,
new
AI-powered
tools,
and
expanded
financial
services
offerings.
Witt,
who
joined
the
company
in
May,
announced
that
three
core
8am
products
—
LawPay,
MyCase
and
SmartSpend
—
will
now
be
fully
integrated
on
a
single
technology
platform.
The
unified
platform
will
be
rolled
out
to
existing
LawPay
customers
over
the
coming
months,
maintaining
familiar
functionality
while
adding
features
like
time
tracking
and
invoicing
capabilities.
“This
platform
moment
allows
these
amazing
pieces
to
come
together
like
a
kaleidoscope
into
a
more
coherent
and
wonderful
whole,”
Witt
said,
saying
the
integration
will
bring
seamless
connectivity
between
payment
processing,
practice
management
and
financial
tools.
AI
“Chat
with
Cases”
Beta
Witt
also
previewed
the
launch
of
the
company’s
generative
AI
initiative,
8AM
IQ.
It
will
introduce
a
“Chat
with
Cases”
feature
currently
in
beta
testing
for
MyCase
customers.
She
said
that
the
tool
has
been
trained
specifically
to
avoid
hallucination
while
providing:
-
Natural
language
search
capabilities
across
case
histories. -
Document
scanning
and
synthesis
across
multiple
files. -
Case
summarization
features. -
Query
responses
about
case
details
(family
members,
names,
etc.)
Witt
emphasized
that
the
AI
system
includes
human
oversight
and
has
been
designed
for
high
accuracy
from
the
outset,
following
a
“human
in
the
loop”
approach.
8am
is
also
deploying
AI
to
automatically
extract
data
from
legal
documents,
particularly
targeting
immigration
cases
to
start.
The
feature,
now
live
in
both
the
immigration
plugin
for
MyCase
and
the
DocketWise
immigration
platform,
is
designed
to
extract
information
from
common
forms
and
populate
submissible
documents
with
lawyer
oversight.
Future
AI
Development
Witt
outlined
the
company’s
plans
to
expand
AI
capabilities
into
financial
management,
including:
-
Automated
accounts
receivable
reminders. -
Cash
flow
predictions
based
on
firm
history. -
Payroll
feasibility
analysis. -
Actionable
financial
insights.
Witt
noted
that
customer
feedback
indicated
the
highest
comfort
level
with
AI
adoption
in
financial
analysis
applications.
Other
New
Integrations
and
Capabilities
In
her
keynote,
Witt
also
announced
other
new
integrations
and
capabilities.
Among
these
is
a
new
integration
with
the
NetDocuments
document
management
system.
This
was
done,
she
said,
in
response
to
customer
demand
for
best-in-class
document
management
tools
as
firms
scale.
Witt
said
the
company
plans
to
launch
customizable
reporting
features
in
the
coming
weeks.
These
will
allow
firms
to:
-
Apply
custom
filters
to
reports. -
Add
different
conventions
to
standard
forms. -
Export
data
with
greater
control. -
Access
more
granular
financial
reporting.
In
another
enhancement,
8am
is
implementing
OCR
technology
across
its
platform,
which
will
enable
search
and
processing
of
uploaded
image
files.
Witt
revealed
that
approximately
30%
of
documents
stored
in
MyCase,
CasePeer
and
DocketWise
—
some
38
million
documents
—
are
images
containing
unsearchable
text.
The
OCR
implementation,
rolling
out
over
the
next
quarter,
will
make
these
documents
fully
searchable
and
accessible
to
AI
tools.
Expansion
of
Financial
Services
Last
year,
the
company
rolled
out
the
beta
of
SmartSpend,
which marries
a
business
credit
card
for
law
firms
to
software
that
directly
channels
client-related
expenses
into
the
associated
matters
and
invoices
within
the
MyCase
law
practice
management
platform.
Now,
Witt
said,
SmartSpend
is
out
of
beta
and
live
for
customers.
She
said
that
customers
that
participated
in
the
beta indicated
time
savings
of
up
to
20
hours
per
week
through
SmartSpend’s
automated
receipt
capture
and
invoice
mapping.
Witt
also
announced
8am
Capital,
a
short-term
lending
service
launching
early
next
year.
The
service
leverages
transaction
data
insights
to
provide
low-cost
loans
to
legal
professionals,
addressing
the
challenges
small
firms
sometimes
face
with
traditional
banking
relationships
and
credit
access.
These
product
announcements,
Witt
said,
support
8am’s
rebranding
strategy,
positioning
the
company
beyond
its
payment
processing
origins
as
a
comprehensive
suite
of
practice
management
and
business
operations
tools.
It
is
the
company’s
mission,
Witt
said,
to
“power
a
world
where
professionals
thrive”
through
integrated
technology
solutions.