By Nicole Black, Above the Law, March 4, 2017 This post has been viewed 21 times. This year, one of the topics that popped up over and over throughout the conference was artificial intelligence and its potential impact on the practice of law. In part the AI focus was attributable to the Keynote speaker on the opening day of the conference, Andrew McAfee, author of The Second Machine Age (affiliate link). His talk focused on ways that AI would disrupt business as usual in the years to come. His predictions were in part premised on his assertion that key technologies had improved greatly in recent years and as a result we're in the midst of a convergence of these technologies such that AI is finally coming of age.

I spent most of last week in the Midtown Hilton in New York City attending "Legaltech 2017," or "Legalweek: The Experience," or some sort of variation of the two. For the most part, it pretty much had the same feel as every other Legaltech I've attended. But I agree with my fellow Above the Law tech columnist, Bob Ambrogi, that ALM deserves kudos for trying to change the focus a bit. It may take a year or two of experimentation to get it right, but at least they're trying. This year, one of the topics that popped up over and over throughout the conference was artificial intelligence and its potential impact on the practice of law.

To say that AI is the number one buzz word in legal at the moment is to say the least. But there is still a big uncertainty about what it actually is and what it can do. A general misconception seems to be that Artificial Intelligence is a single "thing". It can be clause identification, anomaly detection, general due diligence review tools, cognitive systems, machine learning etc. One of the AI-seminars at LegalTech focused on the use of machine-learning technology in due diligence reviews, where the tools help lawyers review large sets of material, looking for risks and pitfalls.