How Legal Teams Can Stay Human-Centered In the Age of AI

Potential data leak remains a concern

In a recent report on generative AI, analysts at IDC observed that legal departments have “been hesitant to jump into the GenAI fray.”

“The worry for many is how the models are seeded … and if sensitive data could potentially leak from the organization,” the authors report.

At the same time, the incredible power of generative AI likely means that it's coming to legal departments whether they like it or not.

In a recent conversation, Christina Demetriades, the General Counsel for Europe at Accenture, and Bernadette Bulacan, Chief Evangelist for Icertis, broke down the challenges and opportunities they see with applying generative AI to the particularly sensitive and nuanced data contained in contracts.

Experts agree thinking critically about the output is key

Both agreed that, as powerful as generative AI is, it is critical that lawyers—or any other human user—understand how AI is generative information and to think critically about what its output is.

“The challenge of generative AI being so fantastic at grasping language is that it gives the impression of having grasped expertise,” noted Ms. Demetriades. “Our role either to prompt it to or to act as the ultimate arbiter of the output of the system is going to be incredibly important.”

Ms. Bulacan agreed, noting that in her own conversations, transparency is a central theme.

“Explainable AI is so important for our customers – where is the AI in use, what data is it trained on, how is it fine-tuned,” she noted. “It is so important, whether it is generative AI, classic AI, or otherwise.”

Watch the clip above to hear more, or access the entire conversation here.