Legal tech clarity starts here: Themes from Chief AI Officer panels in Australia

From “Should we?” to “How do we?”

Panellists reflected on a clear change in mindset over the past 12-18 months. Early debates about AI risk and pilots have given way to more pragmatic questions: how AI fits into daytoday legal workflows, how it integrates with existing tools, and how legal teams measure value.

For corporate legal teams, this shift looks different than it does for law firms. Unlike firms, inhouse teams are often a small part of the business and not its core function. Legal functions must work within broader enterprise constraints – IT governance, procurement cycles, and competing organisational priorities – which makes “build vs buy” decisions far more complex. 

Start with the problem, not the tool

A recurring theme was the importance of starting with real legal problems rather than AI capability. Successful adoption comes from breaking legal work into discrete tasks and identifying where AI can meaningfully support those steps.

The most effective teams are not chasing “big bang” transformation, but stacking small, highimpact improvements that compound over time.

In practice, this has led many legal teams to focus on: 

• Lowfriction productivity gains, such as summarisation, firstpass reviews and playbookdriven contract analysis
• Frontdoor legal interfaces, helping business users provide clearer instructions and surface issues earlier
• Reusing existing enterprise technology before introducing bespoke legal tools 

Governance is the enabler, not the brake

Responsible AI governance has emerged as a critical enabler of progress, not a barrier to it. Panellists emphasised that AI should be treated much like a junior team member: powerful, fast, and capable – but always supervised.

In practice this means:

• Clear human-in-the-loop review expectations
• An understanding of AI limitations, not just its outputs
• Alignment with enterprisewide risk, data and security frameworks

Strong governance creates confidence both internally and with external advisers, allowing legal teams to move faster without compromising trust. 

Where the real value lies

While efficiency gains are important, the panel highlighted a more significant opportunity: data enrichment. AI enables legal teams to analyse far larger datasets than previously possible, producing deeper insights, stronger benchmarks and more informed strategic advice. It creates time and insight – not just speed.

In practice, this translates into:

• Earlier visibility of legal and commercial risk
• More time to think, test and shape strategy
• Better informed conversations with boards, executives and external counsel