News You Can Use

Edition 6 · 18th - 30th Nov 2024

News You Can Use

Deep Dives

Three stories worth sitting with

Breakdown of an agent tech stack

What
The rise of AI agents is built on a "stack" approach, where modular AI components are combined to perform specific tasks. These frameworks allow for seamless integrations, enabling AI agents to interact across tools, datasets, and workflows more effectively.
So what
This modular stack concept can potentially be integrated into some of the workflows we want to build at AG using AI, including Deal Clarity. By adopting similar frameworks, we could develop AI agents tailored to niche legal tasks, such as multi-contract family reviews or compliance checks, that seamlessly integrate into our existing tech stack.

Overview of AI Agents and MS Copilot

What
Microsoft outlines how AI agents can revolutionise industries by acting as intelligent intermediaries between systems and users. They streamline workflows by automating repetitive tasks, such as data entry or scheduling, and enhance decision-making through real-time analysis of complex data. For example, AI agents in finance can monitor transactions for compliance, while in healthcare, they can assist in diagnostics. Ethical considerations highlighted include data privacy, bias mitigation, and ensuring transparency in decision-making to maintain trust in AI solutions.
So what
These insights reinforce the need for AG to leverage AI agents for industry-specific applications. For example, in legal services, AI agents could automate tasks like initial client intake or basic contract review, or allow us to chain solutions together more easily. At the same time, ethical considerations such as ensuring unbiased decision-making and safeguarding sensitive client data must remain central as we develop AGPT and related tools.

2024 Tech Trends

What
The presentation discusses AI's evolving role, emphasising how its integration into everyday technology is redefining efficiency and innovation. Evans highlights trends such as adaptive user interfaces and AI-powered automation as pivotal to the next wave of digital transformation.
So what
This provides a strategic lens for AG's AI roadmap. Prioritising user-centric features and automation in AGPT could differentiate us in the legal tech space, ensuring our tools meet both client and internal team needs efficiently. It's also a good overview of the tech market and 2024/25 trends to understand.

TR testing new mini-model with OpenAI for specific legal tasks

What
CoCounsel leverages OpenAI's compact o1 Mini model to improve contract analysis, legal research, and compliance workflows. This approach focuses on delivering tailored AI solutions that maintain accuracy while optimising resources.
So what
CoCounsel's use of a smaller yet effective model presents a pathway for AG to explore similar compact AI solutions. This could be particularly impactful in reducing computational costs while maintaining high performance in tools like Deal Clarity, potentially allowing us to use smaller models for some use cases whilst still applying the bigger LLMs for text analysis.

Acquisition Announcement - Litera acquires Office & Dragons

What
Litera, a leading legal tech provider, has acquired Office & Dragons, a company specialising in document automation and collaboration tools. The acquisition is aimed at expanding Litera's capabilities in drafting and workflow management.
So what
This consolidation signals a trend of strategic mergers in legal tech, underscoring the value of integrated, end-to-end solutions. For AG, this is a reminder to monitor vendor consolidation closely and consider how partnerships or tool integrations can keep our tech stack competitive.

Worth Reading

Everything else worth a click

AI agent tech stack

Letta's reference map of the AI agent stack - model serving, storage, frameworks, tools, and hosting - a useful mental model if you're trying to orient yourself in the agent ecosystem.

AI Agents and MS Copilot - Jared Spataro

Microsoft's Jared Spataro frames Copilot as the interface and agents as the apps - with Dow and Thomson Reuters case examples and a peek at the "constellation of agents" vision.

2024 Tech Trends - Benedict Evans

Benedict Evans's annual "AI eats the world" deck - his macro read on where tech is heading, always worth a read for the long-range strategic framing.

TR CoCounsel + OpenAI o1-mini

Thomson Reuters pairing OpenAI's o1-mini with CoCounsel on specific legal reasoning tasks - an early signal of how reasoning models are being slotted into production legal workflows.

Structure of the way LLMs think

A pop-science write-up of research claiming LLMs develop brain-like geometric structures internally - interesting framing, though light on peer-reviewed sourcing.

Dear Legal Tech, we need to be better

Nicola Shaver calls out tall-poppy syndrome in legal tech - the industry's habit of tearing down successful companies (read: Harvey) rather than celebrating progress.

Future AGI Scenario planning - IMF

Anton Korinek in the IMF's F&D magazine on scenario planning for an AGI future - the economic implications policymakers should be stress-testing now, not after the fact.

Is AI progress slowing down?

Time's survey of the "is scaling dead?" debate, pulling together the voices on both sides of the current frontier-model plateau argument.

Orbital Witness case study on MS Copilot

Microsoft's Orbital Witness case study - how they pivoted from traditional ML to LLMs and built Orbital Copilot, now claiming 70% time savings on property diligence.

Copilot Pages announcement

Microsoft's launch of Copilot Pages - a persistent, shareable canvas for multiplayer AI collaboration, essentially Microsoft's answer to OpenAI Canvas and Claude Artifacts.

Jeff Langlands (BT Group GC) - Part 2

Part two of Jeff Langlands's BT Legal reflections - collaboration with law firms, leveraging corporate partnerships, incremental vendor updates, and why GenAI is not a big-bang change.

Amazon increases investment in Anthropic

Amazon doubles down on Anthropic with a second $4 billion investment, making AWS Anthropic's primary training partner and locking in Trainium/Inferentia chips for future model training.

Harvey Vault update

Harvey's Vault update - 10,000 files per project (up from 1,000), one-click extraction workflows with 96-99% recall, customisable review tables, and Assistant integration.

HSBC's Turning Point series

HSBC's sponsored Bloomberg series on global innovation networks - six episodes covering space, quantum, robotics, shipping, smart cities, and AI-reshaped architecture.

Legal Tech Trends Newsletter #35

Peter Duffy's scan - legal departments get only 3% of enterprise GenAI budgets, Ironclad's Jurist launches, Trellis moves into litigation, and Litera buys Office & Dragons.