“The
dirty
secret,”
a
veteran
eDiscovery
consultant
told
me,
“is
that
AI
still
can’t
actually
handle
these
massive
document
sets.”
While
the
industry
rushes
toward
AI
adoption,
embracing
its
demonstrated
strengths
and
—
for
some
insane
and
persistent
reason
—
its
well-documented
weaknesses,
one
hurdle
it
can’t
quite
surmount
is
the
ever-expanding
size
of
discovery.
AI
is,
rightly,
lauded
for
its
capacity
to
analyze
and
summarize
large
amounts
of
data,
but
crunching
100
deposition
transcripts
is
one
thing
and
getting
on
top
of
terabytes
worth
of
discovery
is
quite
another.
Context
windows
just
aren’t
that
big.
Which
means
legal
tech
vendors
have
to
get
creative
within
the
limits
of
the
technology.
Today,
at
its
SYNERGY
Legal
Professionals
conference,
Thomson
Reuters
announced
a
new
beta
feature
that
gets
users
closer.
CoCounsel
Legal’s
new
bulk
document
review
feature
allows
analysis
of
10,000
documents
at
a
clip,
returning
sortable,
user-friendly
results.
The
secret
sauce
is
in
taking
these
big
batches
and
returning
structured
analysis
that
users
can
then
—
for
lack
of
a
better
term
—
daisy
chain
to
get
on
top
of
“hundreds
or
thousands
of
documents
far
more
efficiently
than
traditional
manual
methods,”
as
the
press
release
puts
it.
This
underscores,
again,
that
AI
isn’t
replacing
humans.
Someone
has
to
run
the
requisite
10K
at
a
time
searches
and
deal
with
the
results.
But
it
will
reduce
the
number
of
humans
necessary
to
get
through
these
traditionally
brute
force
searches
and
then
put
everything
together.
The
general
purpose
AI
companies
will
keep
promising
exponential
growth,
but
it’s
just
not
coming
and
the
key
differentiator
for
legal
tech
will
be
building
the
best
workarounds
to
deal
with
AI’s
baked
in
context
window
limitations.
Thomson
Reuters
also
announced
an
agentic
feature
for
“Independent
Execution
of
Legal
Tasks.”
Sigh.
The
record
will
reflect
my
ongoing
disdain
for
the
term
“agentic.”
Independent
research
into
these
so-called
“agentic”
AI
tools
reveals
a
dismal
track
record,
with
failure
rates
upward
of
70
percent
according
to
a
Carnegie
Mellon
study.
On
top
of
that,
the
term
is
employed
by
the
industry
to
describe
an
AI
tool
that
autonomously
creates
a
multi-step
workflow
and
then
acts
on
it,
which
is
just
an
invitation
to
multiple
points
of
failure
that
—
even
if
it
worked
better
than
the
studies
indicate
—
should
terrify
a
lawyer.
On
top
of
that,
compressing
multiple
steps
in
the
lawyerly
process
invites
a
psychological
reordering
that
can
make
lawyers,
well…
dumber.
But
while
the
new
Thomson
Reuters
beta
tool
will
experiment
with
independent
work,
the
planned
end
state
of
the
feature
is
a
very
useful
tool
that
shouldn’t
worry
lawyers
at
all:
With
the
second
phase,
legal
professionals
will
have
access
to
a
customizable
workflow
builder
that
will
allow
them
to
create,
save
and
share
their
own
workflows
within
CoCounsel
Legal
capitalizing
on
the
trusted
content
and
solutions
from
Thomson
Reuters
as
well
as
the
firm’s
knowledge.
Additionally,
this
facilitates
the
development
of
repeatable,
law
firm-specific
processes
and
supports
reusability
across
teams
–
ensuring
consistency
while
capturing
institutional
knowledge
and
best
practices.
Building
a
workflow
based
on
the
lived
experience
of
the
lawyers
is
exactly
the
sort
of
tool
a
firm
can
use.
It’s
“autonomous”
to
the
extent
it
checks
and
acts
upon
the
work
it’s
trained
by
the
firm
to
accomplish.
As
with
the
document
review
feature,
the
race
here
is
to
build
something
that
allows
AI
to
be
better
harnessed
to
match
what
lawyers
actually
do.
If
the
AI
bubble
doesn’t
explode
more
epically
than
that
infamous
Subway
sandwich,
this
is
where
the
action
will
be
for
the
next
few
years.
Don’t
watch
the
AI
as
much
as
what
companies
like
Thomson
Reuters
are
putting
on
top
of
AI.
That’s
the
fun
stuff
and
the
real
differentiator.
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.