RelativityFest
kicked
off
last
week
with
a
song
and
dance
number
—
well,
a
keynote
followed
by
a
song
and
dance
number,
anyway
—
welcoming
some
1,834
attendees
to
Chicago’s
Hyatt
Regency.
As
with
most
user
conferences,
the
opening
keynote
offered
a
platform
to
rile
up
the
crowd
with
exciting
new
announcements.
And
the
announcements
were
indeed
significant,
though
they
will
end
up
making
more
waves
with
the
people
outside
the
ballroom
this
week.
Unlike
the
last
couple
years,
where
Relativity
showed
off
the
promise
of
new
AI-enabled
products
in
the
“aiR”
family
—
aiR
for
Review,
aiR
for
Privilege,
and
aiR
for
Case
Strategy
—
this
year’s
big
announcement
was
less
about
what’s
coming
and
more
about
what’s
here
right
now.
The
products
we’ve
heard
about
as
speculative
forays
into
an
AI-assisted
eDiscovery
future
are
going
to
become
the
baseline
from
now
on,
with
aiR
for
Review
and
aiR
for
Privilege
moving
to
a
standard
offering
in
RelativityOne.
And
aiR
for
Case
Strategy,
in
Limited
General
Availability
since
March,
will
likely
soon
to
follow.
For
Relativity
customers
across
the
legal
industry,
this
is
a
big
deal.
The
problem
with
an
announcement
like
this
at
a
customer
conference
is
that
the
folks
in
the
room
represent
the
self-selecting
population
of
super
users
who
already
jumped
at
access
for
these
products
during
their
limited
run.
For
this
crowd,
the
announcement
isn’t
changing
much
about
their
day-to-day
practice.
Relativity
aiR
Privilege
and
Review
have
already
been
used
by
200+
customers
in
1,500+
workspaces
and
made
some
100M+
review
predictions,
and
those
are
the
flavor
of
customers
who
fly
to
Chicago
for
a
show.
With
the
audience
reacting
more
with
nods
of
approval
than
raucous
applause,
a
disinterested
observer
in
the
room
might
have
dismissed
this
as
a
relatively
—
see
what
we
did
there?
—
mundane
announcement.
But
for
the
Relativity
users
out
there
who
aren’t
sending
their
people
to
RelativityFest
—
the
sort
of
firms
that
may
harbor
some
wariness
over
shelling
out
for
new-fangled
AI
tools
—
it’s
monumental.
CEO
Phil
Saunders
stressed
that
customers
shouldn’t
be
satisfied
with
improvements
when
they
really
want
perfection.
Part
of
that
approach
is
Relativity’s
cautious
product
roll
out,
holding
products
in
limited
availability
status
until
leadership
is
confident
that
those
tools
are
ready
for
primetime.
Understood
through
that
lens,
the
announcement
wasn’t
about
adding
a
new
offering
to
a
tier
of
customers,
but
a
signal
that
Relativity
decided
that
its
aiR
products
have
passed
all
the
internal
quality
control
benchmarks
to
warrant
general
release.
That’s
a
milestone
moment
and
one
that
the
customers
who
aren’t
on
the
bleeding
edge
will
appreciate.
Purpose
Legal
reportedly
used
Relativity
aiR
for
Review
to
complete
a
300,000-document
review
in
just
one
week,
which
is
the
sort
of
task
that
used
to
require
an
army
of
junior
associates,
a
lot
of
luck,
and
a
truckload
of
Red
Bull.
And
probably
cocaine.
With
these
products,
it’s
about
to
become
routine.
“Relativity
aiR
for
Review
helped
us
and
our
client
address
demands
that
otherwise
would
have
been
impossible
to
meet,
enabling
our
team
to
complete
a
large-scale,
complex
review
under
an
extremely
tight
deadline,”
said
Jeff
Johnson,
Chief
Innovation
Officer
at
Purpose
Legal.
“We
reduced
review
time
by
85%,
eliminated
more
than
4,000
hours
of
manual
work,
and
delivered
cost
savings
of
more
than
$70,000.”
Now
those
sorts
of
gains
are
coming
for
everybody.
The
second
pillar
of
the
keynote
announcement
dealt
with
the
company’s
drive
toward
the
left
of
the
whole
EDRM
equation.
The
newest
member
of
the
aiR
family
will
be
aiR
Assist,
a
natural
language
search
application
intended
to
deliver
insights
for
early
stage
case
assessment.
Along
with
aiR
for
Case
Strategy,
aiR
Assist
is
promises
“litigators
can
identify
the
‘who,
what,
and
when’
of
a
matter
much
earlier
in
the
discovery
process,
prepare
for
interviews
and
depositions
with
clarity,
and
dramatically
reduce
the
time
required
to
analyze
complex
case
materials.”
In
a
press
release
in
conjunction
with
the
keynote,
Antonio
Avant,
Director
of
Legal
Technology
at
Troutman
eMerge,
described
the
early
case
assessment
power
of
the
tools,
“From
early
case
assessment
to
deposition
prep,
the
platform
helps
us
see
the
story
we’re
trying
to
tell
while
helping
our
attorneys
ramp
quickly,
bring
clarity
to
data
sprawl
and
transform
how
we
build
our
cases.”
The
final
prong
of
the
keynote
addressed
the
company’s
long-term
vision.
Saunders
unveiled
Rel
Labs,
a
nod
to
the
famous
Bell
Labs,
to
embark
on
investment
and
innovation
projects.
As
he
explained,
the
pace
of
innovation
is
too
rapid
for
any
one
company
to
stay
ahead
of
it.
Through
the
Rel
Labs
initiative,
Saunders
hopes
to
identify
and
then
invest
in
better
and
better
tech.
The
keynote
wasn’t
a
flashy
spectacle
—
at
least
until
the
aforementioned
song
and
dance
number
—
lardered
up
with
future
product
announcements
promising
near
sci-fi
level
results
for
lawyers.
But
it
did
stick
to
another
unabashedly
Saunders-driven
theme:
“get
shit
done.”
This
was
a
get
shit
done
keynote
that
didn’t
leave
the
audience
with
a
ton
of
new
toys
to
talk
about,
but
a
company
explaining
its
own
grind
to
get
better
results
to
more
customers.
It’s
an
approach
you
don’t
see
often
in
the
middle
of
this
AI
hype
cycle,
but
it’s
a
refreshing
one.
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
free
to email
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments.
Follow
him
on Twitter or
Bluesky
if
you’re
interested
in
law,
politics,
and
a
healthy
dose
of
college
sports
news.
Joe
also
serves
as
a
Managing
Director
at
RPN
Executive
Search.