Key insights:

• • • A significant visibility gap persists between legal departments and the C鈥慡uite 鈥� Most general counsel believe their legal department contributes strategically, yet senior executives often fail to see or understand that value.

    • Strong internal relationship鈥慴uilding is critical (and often underdeveloped) 鈥� This capability enables legal teams to spot risks earlier, stay embedded in decision鈥憁aking, and make their work more visible across the business.

    • Closing the gap requires communicating legal鈥檚 value and increasing true AI fluency 鈥� For legal teams to be seen as proactive, strategic partners rather than task executors, communication and strong AI fluency are essential.

General counsel (GCs) have spent years doing more with less, tightening their legal spend, and aligning the law department鈥檚 priorities with the wider business. And yet, despite all of this effort, a striking visibility gap persists. While 86% of GCs believe their department is a significant contributor to overall organizational objectives, only 17% of the C-Suite agrees, according to the , from the 成人VR视频 Institute, which was based on more than 2,300 interviews with corporate general counsel. Meanwhile, 42% of C-Suite executives say the legal function contributes little or not at all to company performance.

The challenge for GCs is whether their staff have the skills and capabilities to make their work visible, relevant, and understood by the business at large. To address this perception gap in 2026, every GC needs to prioritize building richer internal relationships with business leads, moving from task-based to outcome-focused messaging, and improving the team鈥檚 collective AI fluency.

Empower teams to build internal relationships

Nearly half of all GCs surveyed for the report cited staffing and resource constraints as the top barrier to delivering additional value, a concern that has remained stubbornly consistent for years. Beyond headcount, the report underscores that the deeper challenge facing legal departments is relational.

Internal relationship-building is one of the most critical and underrated people skills in a legal department’s collective skill set. Indeed, 68% of GCs rate internal dialogue as their most valuable source of information about emerging risks. In fact, the most successful GCs use a deliberate combination of formal and informal methods to build connections with the internal business units that they serve.

You can learn more about how to assess your legal department鈥檚 strategic positioning with the听成人VR视频 Institute鈥檚 Value Alignment toolkit, here

Some run structured weekly face-to-face sessions with business departments, complete with schedules, plans, and frameworks. Others rely on walking the halls, open-door policies, and ad-hoc conversations that keep the corporate law department visible and accessible on a human level.

The report offers a five-dimensional framework to help GCs audit where, with whom, and how often legal is in dialogue with other parts of the business.

Use communication tactics that focus on business outcomes

Even when legal departments are doing excellent work, they often describe it in the wrong language. Many in-house lawyers categorize their contributions in task-based terms 鈥� such as 鈥淲e support M&A鈥� or 鈥淲e analyze contracts鈥� 鈥� rather than in value-creating terms.

Some in-house legal leaders have progressed to stakeholder-level framing, such as, 鈥淲e protect the company from competitive threats鈥� or 鈥淲e support new business opportunities.鈥� Still, neither of these levels truly communicates value to a C-Suite audience, the report shows.

To effectively align the law department’s priorities with business goals, in-house attorneys need to develop the skill of communicating through a business lens. For example, one GC states that the primary goal of the law department is to “find the fastest and most compliant way for the sales department to sell products.” This response reframes the legal function鈥檚 activities as much more business fluent and value-added.

Legal teams are not always good at touting their accomplishments, however, and this is a challenge when a lot of the work can be categorized as invisible. For example, when protecting the company is done right, threats are eliminated before they occur and no one notices. When efficiency is unlocked through process improvement, the C-Suite only sees the outcome if someone connects the dots explicitly. This is why surfacing invisible value is now a business imperative for corporate law departments.

Advancing from AI literacy to AI fluency

The most significant skills challenge facing legal departments in 2026 is how to best use AI strategically. Mentions of AI as a strategic priority among GCs have doubled in the past year, according to the report. In fact, almost half of all GCs now reference AI in their survey interviews. Yet the report draws a sharp distinction between being AI literate and being AI fluent, with most departments being the former but not the latter.

To close that gap, the report recommends a six-layer model covering learning, empowerment, ownership, accountability, usage, and expectations.

At its core, the model asks GCs to start with open encouragement and access to AI tools to build momentum, then shift toward more formal expectations around adoption to make AI use a daily habit.

You can download a full copy of the 成人VR视频 Institute鈥檚 here

Key takeaways:

• • • Efficiency is a means, not an end 鈥� Gains from AI only count when you can show what they enabled: better advice, stronger protection, smarter business support.

    • Narrow measurement invites cuts 鈥� Legal departments that measure AI value only through cost savings are telling C-Suites that legal costs less, thereby inviting budget and headcount reductions.

    • Measure across all four plates 鈥� A framework that captures effectiveness, risk, and enablement alongside efficiency is what shifts perception of the legal department from cost center to strategic asset.

Your legal department has invested in AI tools, adoption is growing, your team is saving time on routine work and, by most accounts, work operations are running faster. Then your CFO asks a simple question: What has AI delivered for the legal department?

If your answer centers on hours saved and cost reduced, you are not alone. However, you may be leaving your most important value story untold. And in a climate in which legal departments are under more scrutiny than ever to demonstrate the full return on their AI investment, that gap matters.

This is the fourth and final part of our series on the 鈥淔our Spinning Plates鈥� model, which frames the GC’s evolving responsibilities as:

1. 1. 1. delivering effective advice
      2. operating efficiently
      3. protecting the business, and
      4. enabling strategic ambitions.

This article focuses on the Efficient plate and specifically on the risk of letting it do too much of the talking.

The Efficient plate under pressure

For a GC, making the best use of what are often limited resources is a constant pressure. The Efficient plate sits alongside, not above, the other three plates and must be kept always spinning. Right now, however, for many in-house legal teams the Efficient plate is receiving disproportionate attention, and for understandable reasons.

AI adoption in corporate legal departments is accelerating quickly. According to the 成人VR视频 Institute’s AI in Professional Services Report 2026, nearly half (47%) of corporate legal respondents surveyed said their department has already integrated generative AI (GenAI) into their work 鈥� more than double the figure from the previous year. A further 18% reported that they鈥檙e already using agentic AI, with more than half expecting agentic AI to be central to their workflow within the next two years.

GCs are genuinely excited about what this makes possible. As one GC said in the survey that underpinned the AI in Professional Services Report: “It presents the promise of getting out of low-value work and into higher-value work that supports the business.鈥� Another described their vision of a legal department that is “boldly digital-first, relentlessly innovative, and tightly woven into business priorities.”

Clearly, the opportunity is real, but so is the risk of measuring it badly.

The measurement trap

Our 2026 research found that only one-quarter of legal departments are currently measuring the ROI of their AI tools. That alone is striking given the pace of adoption but the follow-up finding is where the real problem lies 鈥� of those departments that are measuring ROI, 80% are tracking it in terms of internal cost savings.

Reducing external spend, automating high-volume processes, and bringing more work in-house are all legitimate efficiency gains and worth reporting, of course. However, when cost reduction becomes the only story being told, two things can happen. Your C-Suite learns to associate your department’s value with how little it costs, a frame that is very difficult to escape once it鈥檚 established. And the wider value that efficiency enables in terms of sharper risk identification, faster business support, and higher-quality advice goes unmeasured and therefore unrecognized.

听If your metrics only capture time saved and cost reduced, and not what that freed-up capacity actually delivered, you are measuring the means and ignoring the end.

Think about what GCs themselves say they want from AI. As several GCs said in the survey, they鈥檙e hoping AI will provide them with “better output on more meaningful tasks,” “proactive, strategic insight,” and “getting out of low-value work.” These are not efficient outcomes, per se; rather, they are effectiveness, protection, and enablement outcomes, made possible by improved efficiency.

So, if your metrics only capture the input (time saved, cost reduced) and not what that freed-up capacity actually delivered, you are measuring the means and ignoring the end. This is the efficiency trap 鈥� measuring the plate so narrowly that it starts to work against you.

Reframing how you measure efficiency

Measuring efficiency well does not mean measuring it more. It means measuring it differently, and always in relation to the business you support. A few principles worth applying include:

Present spend in a business context 鈥� Legal spend as a percentage of company revenue tells a more credible story than a raw cost figure. It scales with the business and can be benchmarked meaningfully against peers.

Show what technology investment actually delivered 鈥� Time saved through automation is a useful starting point, but the stronger case is what the team did with that time. Tracking the shift from routine to strategic work over a period of time is a far more compelling ROI story.

Connect efficiency gains to business outcomes 鈥� An efficiency gain that enabled a faster product launch, prevented a compliance risk, or improved stakeholder satisfaction has a value that no cost metric will capture. Build those connections explicitly into how you report the value of the legal department to the C-Suite.

New resources to help

To support GCs in getting this right, the 成人VR视频 Institute has added two new resources to its Value Alignment Toolkit that directly address this measurement gap.

The Metrics Library brings together more than 100 metrics organized across all four spinning plates. It is a practical starting point for GCs to browse, select, and adapt to the specific goals of their departments, making it easier to build a measurement framework that reflects everything departments do, not just the part that appears in a budget line.

The AI Success Metrics guide addresses the AI measurement gap head-on with a best practice guide and a hands-on worksheet designed specifically for legal departments navigating AI adoption and asking: How do we actually know whether this is working? It looks beyond cost savings to capture the fuller picture of AI value including quality, capacity, strategic contribution, and risk.

Getting the balance right

In today鈥檚 environment, every GC needs to consider their answer when their C-Suite asks what the legal department delivers. Are your department鈥檚 metrics giving them the full answer or just the part that’s easiest to count?

Efficiency is not the enemy of strategic value. A department that runs well, uses its resources wisely, and embraces technology thoughtfully can in turn create the conditions for everything else the business needs from its legal function. However, that case only lands if your metrics measure across all four plates, not just one.

You can explore the new Metrics Library and AI Success Metrics guide, along with the full 成人VR视频 Institute鈥檚 Value Alignment toolkit听here

Key takeaways:

• • • Violence against judges is escalating 鈥� Targeted shootings, coordinated harassment campaigns, and threats that now routinely follow judges to their homes and families.

    • The rhetoric driving the escalation is coming from the highest levels of government 鈥� The absence of any public denunciation from the Department of Justice is highlighting the source of the problem.

    • Will the violence itself become part of judicial rulings? 鈥� The endgame of judicial intimidation isn’t that judges stop ruling, it’s that the threat of violence becomes a silent presence in the deliberation itself.

NEW YORK 鈥� Those attendees who came to the recent听 to talk about AI, agentic workflows, and the business of legal technology, also were treated to a session that will likely stay with attendees and had nothing to do with AI.

In that session, four federal judges took the stage; but they were not there to talk about pricing models or AI adoption. They were there to talk about staying alive.

Setting the stage

Jason Wareham, CEO of IPSA Intelligent Systems and a former U.S. Marine Corps judge advocate, introduced the session 鈥� a panel of four sitting United States District Court judges 鈥� by speaking of how the rule of law once seemed resolute, yet how that faith in that has been shaken, year after year. He worked hard to frame his observations as nonpartisan, a matter of institutional fragility rather than political allegiance. It was a generous framing, but it was one that would not survive the weight of the ensuing discussion.

The Honorable Esther Salas of the District of New Jersey said that the reason she was there has a name. On July 19, 2020, a disgruntled, extremist attorney who had a case before her court arrived at her home during a birthday celebration. He shot and killed her twenty-year-old son, Daniel Anderl. He shot and critically wounded her husband. She has spent the years since on a mission to protect her judicial colleagues from the same fate.

The new normal

Next, the Honorable Kenly Kiya Kato of the Central District of California described what has changed. Judges鈥� rulings are still based on the Constitution, on precedent, and on the facts; but what’s different is the small voice in the back of a judge’s head. That voice, often coming after a judge issued a decision that they now have to fight against, asks: What will happen after this? It is now expected, Judge Kato explained, that a high-profile order will bring threats. When two colleagues in her district issued prominent decisions, her first thought was for their safety. That is not how it has been historically.

The Honorable Mia Roberts Perez of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania asked how we got here, pointing to language from the highest levels of government: judges called monsters, a U.S. Department of Justice declaring war on rogue judges, and recently politicians bringing justice鈥檚 families into the conversation.

Judge Salas pushed even further. She acknowledged the instinct to frame the problem as bipartisan, but said the current moment is not apples to apples. It is apples to watermelons. The spike in threats since 2015, she argued, traces directly to rhetoric from political leaders using language never before deployed against the bench.

The federal judiciary is looking to break annual records for threats [against judges], and there is an absence of any public denunciation from the Attorney General or the DOJ.

The evidence is not abstract, nor are the victims, and the panel walked through it. Judge John Roemer of Wisconsin, zip-tied to a chair and assassinated in his home. Associate Judge Andrew Wilkinson of Maryland shot dead in his driveway while his family was inside. Judge Steven Meyer of Indiana and his wife Kimberly, shot through their own front door after attackers first posed as a food delivery, then returned days later claiming to have found the couple’s dog. Judge Meyer has just undergone his fifth surgery since the attack.

All of these incidents happened at the judges’ homes.

Judge Salas then played a voicemail, one of thousands that federal judges receive. It was less than 30 seconds long, but it did not need to be longer. While names had been redacted, what remained was a torrent of threats and obscenities, graphic, sexual and violent, delivered with the confidence of someone who does not expect consequences. Some judges receive hundreds of these after a single ruling, often from people with no case before them at all.

The shadow over the courts

Throughout the session, there was a presence the panelists circled but rarely named directly. A shadow that shaped every observation about escalating threats, every reference to rhetoric from the top down, every mention of language never before used by political leaders, of action or inaction the likes of which would have been unthinkable just several years ago. The specifics were spoken. The name, largely, was not.

It didn’t have to be.

Judge Kato said that what was perhaps the most disheartening aspect of all this is that these threats are getting worse. The people who know better are not doing better. Indeed, she said her children think about these problems every day. What will happen to mom today? Will someone come to the house? These are questions children should not have to carry. They did not sign up for this, and neither did the judges.

In 2026, Judge Salas noted, the federal judiciary is looking to break annual records for threats. She also noted the absence of any public denunciation from the Attorney General or the DOJ. The silence, she said, says a lot.

Not surprisingly, the implications extend beyond the judges themselves. As Judge Salas noted, if judges have to weigh their safety alongside the law, ordinary people don’t stand a chance. If one party is stronger, better funded, or more willing to threaten, then the scales tip.

That is the endgame of judicial intimidation. It鈥檚 not that judges stop ruling, but that the violent and the powerful 鈥� indeed, the people least fit to hold the scales 鈥� can tilt them at will.

That concern echoed an earlier warning from Judge Karoline Mehalchick of the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Judge Mehalchick said that judicial intimidation feeds on misunderstanding. When the public no longer grasps why judges must be insulated from pressure or conversely, mistakes independence for partisanship, the threat environment becomes easier to justify, easier to ignore, and harder to reverse.

What is perhaps the most disheartening aspect of all this is that these threats are getting worse, and the people who know better are not doing better.

In his 2024 year-end report, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts identified four threats to judicial independence: violence, intimidation, disinformation, and threats to defy lawfully entered judgements. The panel discussed this report as prophecy fulfilled. Public confidence in the judiciary has plummeted since 2021, and the reasons are complex. The judges insisted they are still doing their jobs the right way, but the violence is spreading anyway.

What survives

Judge Salas asked the audience to watch their thoughts. Are they negative and destructive, or positive and uplifting? Can we start loving more? She ended by sending love and light to everyone in the room.

The judges were visibly emotional on the stage.

The words were beautiful. They were also, in the context of everything that had just been described 鈥� the killings, the voicemails, the zip ties, the pizza deliveries masking a threat under a murdered son’s name 鈥� resting in a shadow that no amount of love and light could fully dispel on their own.

The room responded with a standing ovation.

Thousands of people came to Legalweek 2026 to talk about the future of legal technology. For one morning, four judges reminded them that none of it matters if the people charged with administering justice cannot do so safely.

So, while the billable hour may survive and the associate will adapt, the harder question, the one that should keep the legal industry awake at night, is whether the bench will hold.

You can find more of听our coverage of Legalweek events听here

• • • AI is already reshaping the legal profession 鈥� AI听is already embedded in lawyers’ day-to-day legal work with a significant share of both law firm attorneys and in-house legal teams actively using GenAI tools, with many expecting it to become central to their work within the next five years.

    • AIFLP Advisory Board was formed to prepare lawyers for an AI-reshaped profession 鈥� TRI convened 21 respected leaders from legal education, private practice, the judiciary, and AI ethics and governance to help ensure lawyers and law students are prepared for a profession reshaped by AI.

    • Human judgment remains central in an AI enabled legal future听鈥� Becoming AI ready is not simply about learning to use new tools; the Advisory Board emphasizes strengthening irreplaceable human capabilities is critical.

In today鈥檚 tech-driven environment, AI is no longer a future concept for the legal profession 鈥� it鈥檚 already here, and it鈥檚 changing how lawyers work, learn, and serve clients. Recognizing just how fast the evolution is moving, the 成人VR视频 Institute (TRI) has launched the AI and the Future of Legal Practice (AIFLP) Advisory Board, bringing together a group of respected leaders from across the legal ecosystem to help guide what comes next.

The board includes 21 accomplished voices from legal education, private practice, the judiciary, and AI ethics and governance. Their shared goal is simple but ambitious: Help ensure that both today鈥檚 lawyers and tomorrow鈥檚 law students are prepared for a profession being reshaped by AI.

Why now?

Because the shift is already underway. According to TRI鈥檚 recent 2026 AI in Professional Services Report, 41% of law firm attorneys say their organizations are already using some form of generative AI (GenAI); and nearly half of those at corporate legal departments report that AI tools are being rolled out there too. Even more telling, most professionals said they expect GenAI to become central to their day鈥憈o鈥慸ay work within the next five years.

That pace of change raises big questions about competence, ethics, education, risk, and access to justice. And those questions don鈥檛 have easy answers.

What the Advisory Board will focus on

The AIFLP Advisory Board is designed to tackle those challenges head鈥憃n. Its work will center on four key areas that are already under pressure as AI adoption accelerates:

• • • Legal education and talent development
    • Ethics, professional competence, and accountability
    • Governance, risk management, and client counseling
    • Access to justice and modern service delivery

The Advisory Board鈥檚 early focus areas will look at how AI is actually changing legal practice today, what future鈥憆eady lawyers really need to know, and how legal education and real鈥憌orld practice can better align. The emphasis is not just on using AI tools, but on strengthening the human skills that matter most, such as sound judgment, critical thinking, and careful verification of AI鈥慻enerated outputs.

Shaping the future, not reacting to it

Citing the critical need for this Advisory Board鈥檚 creation, Mike Abbott, Head of the 成人VR视频 Institute, notes that the legal profession is at a crossroads, and it can either react to AI鈥慸riven disruption or take an active role in shaping how these technologies are used to support lawyers, courts, and the public.

鈥淏y assembling a board of distinguished leaders, our goal is to help practicing lawyers and the lawyers of the future navigate a rapidly evolving landscape,鈥� Abbott said. 鈥淓nsuring that legal education strengthens irreplaceable skills such as critical thinking, human judgment and effective communication helps make AI use safe and effective. The Board鈥檚 efforts will ultimately help shape a future-ready profession, leading to better outcomes for all.鈥�

Meet the AIFLP Advisory Board Members

By convening experienced leaders from across the profession, TRI hopes to help lawyers navigate this landscape with confidence. Advisory Board Members include:

• • • Michael Abbott, Head of the 成人VR视频 Institute
    • Soledad Atienza, Dean, IE Law School
    • The Honorable Jennifer D. Bailey, (Ret.), Partner, Bass Law
    • Benjamin Barros, Dean, Stetson University College of Law
    • Professor Sara J. Berman, University of Southern California, Gould School of Law
    • Megan Carpenter, Dean Emeritus, University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law
    • Ronald S. Flagg, President, Legal Services Corporation
    • Donna Haddad, AI Ethics and Governance expert, and founding member, IBM AI Ethics Board
    • Johanna Kalb, Dean and Professor of Law, University of San Francisco School of Law
    • The Honorable Nelly Khouzam, Florida Second District Court of Appeal
    • The Honorable William Koch, Dean, Nashville School of Law, and former Tennessee Supreme Court Justice
    • Sheldon Krantz, retired partner, DLA Piper, and a founder, DC Affordable Law Firm
    • Stefanie A. Lindquist, Dean, School of Law, Washington University in St. Louis
    • The Honorable Mark Martin, Founding Dean and Professor of Law, Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law at High Point University, and former Chief Justice, Supreme Court of North Carolina
    • Caitlin (Cat) Moon, Professor of the Practice and founding co-director, Vanderbilt AI Law Lab, Vanderbilt Law School
    • Hari Osofsky, Myra and James Bradwell Professor and former Dean, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law; Founding Director, Northwestern University Energy Innovation Lab; and Founding Director, Rule of Law Global Academic Partnership
    • Joanna Penn, Chief Transformation Officer, Husch Blackwell
    • The Honorable Morris Silberman, Florida Second District Court of Appeal
    • The Honorable Samuel A. Thumma, Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One
    • Mark Wasserman, Partner and CEO Emeritus, Eversheds Sutherland
    • Donna E. Young, Founding Dean, Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Toronto Metropolitan University

What鈥檚 next?

The Advisory Board held its first meeting in February and will meet quarterly going forward. As the work progresses, TRI plans to publish research findings, best practices, and practical recommendations for legal educators, law firms, and courts.

In a profession built on precedent and careful reasoning, the rise of AI presents both opportunity and responsibility. The AIFLP Advisory Board is an effort to make sure the legal community meets that moment thoughtfully and on its own terms.

You can learn more about the impact of advanced technology on the legal profession here

Key takeaways:

• • • New Zealand legal market achieves revenue and profit growth 鈥� A new TRI report on the New Zealand law firm market shows firms rebounding strongly from the pandemic, with firm revenue and profits up impressively.

    • Transactional and counter-cyclical practice demand drives success 鈥� More than half of the legal demand for New Zealand law firms comes from transactional work, which rose of the past year; meanwhile, counter-cyclical practices saw even higher growth rates.

    • Managed expenses and increased partner utilisation boost profit margins 鈥� Despite rising expenses due to technology and knowledge management investments, New Zealand law firms maintained manageable costs and increased equity partner utilisation.

For New Zealand law firms, years of careful investment and strategic pandemic recovery have paid off. Today, strong demand has vaulted firm revenue growth above double digits, leading to profits not seen among New Zealand firms since the early days of the pandemic, according to a new report from the 成人VR视频 Institute (TRI) and data from TRI鈥檚 .

Jump to 鈫�

2026 Report on the State of the New Zealand Legal Market

Demand at New Zealand law firms rose more than 5% last year, following stagnant or decreasing growth rates between 2022 and 2024, according to TRI鈥檚 2026 Report on the State of the New Zealand Legal Market. As a result, overall firm revenue rose by more than 10%, placing it back near pre-pandemic levels. Coupled with managed expense growth, New Zealand law firms saw their first double-digit profit growth since 2021, after declines in demand for transactional practice work scuttled profits in 2022 and 2023.

Overall, more than half of the legal demand for New Zealand law firms comes from transactional work such as corporate general and M&A practices; and indeed, demand for such work rose last year after seeing only modest growth or declines in the the years prior. However, the report shows that even more notable is the rise of demand in counter-cyclical practices such as disputes & litigation, insurance defense, and workplace relations. The growth rate of counter-cyclical demand topped that of transactional demand in the second quarter of last year and continued to separate itself throughout the remainder of the year.

At the same time, firms continued to enjoy steady rate growth, with their worked rate growth over this past year coming close to their average rate growth than was seen from 2022 to 2024.

Interestingly, this represents a different strategy by New Zealand firms, compared to those in the United States or Australia, to capture profits through other means while keeping their rate increases manageable. And indeed, while Australian and US firms have largely seen falling utilisation, New Zealand equity partners averaged more hours worked per month in 2025 than they did the year prior, which helped to drive higher revenues.

Meanwhile, total expenses ticked up slightly last year compared with 2024, with both direct expenses and indirect expenses rising. However, much of this growth in indirect expenses is largely due to increased investments in technology and knowledge management, an increasingly necessary expense in the age of AI.

As a result of the demand rebound and more manageable expenses, New Zealand law firms are seeing their revenues and profits soar.

Overall revenue more than doubled, percentagewise, in 2025, which in turn directly led to sky-high profits in 2025 that were almost triple what they were the year prior. Profit per equity partner also saw similar gains.

Overall, New Zealand law firms on average largely held steady with a profit margin around 43%, while some firms saw profit margins soar above 50%.

As the report shows, all of this represents a very positive financial picture for New Zealand law firms. The return of demand, steady rate growth, and managed expenses has provided firms a solid footing from which to grow further. And if New Zealand law firm leaders can build on those positive metrics, they look poised to take these gains and grow further in 2026.

You can download

a full copy of the 成人VR视频 Institute’s “2026 Report on the State of the New Zealand Legal Market” by filling out the form below:

Key takeaways:

• • • Disconnect between legal departments and C-Suite perceptions 鈥� While many general counsel believe their departments are significant contributors to business success, most C-Suite executives do not share this view. Fully 86% of GCs say they believe their department is a significant contributor, but only 17% of C-Suite executives agree.

    • A need to find new ways to demonstrate value 鈥� Legal departments are under increasing pressure to do more with less, as nearly half of GCs surveyed cite staffing and resource constraints as their top barrier to delivering additional value. Despite these limitations, expectations from the C-Suite continue to rise.

    • AI adoption accelerates, business strategy comes next 鈥� Legal departments are rapidly embracing technology to improve efficiency, manage resources, and address cost pressures. Not surprisingly, the proportion of GCs calling AI a strategic imperative has doubled.

Over the past several years, general counsel and corporate law departments at large have transformed their operations. Many have become more efficient enterprises, leveraging technology, in particular AI, at an increased pace. GCs have adjusted their hiring practices to conform with the modern corporation, taking new ways of working into account. And they have embraced data-driven decision-making, evaluating outside counsel and their own operations alike with a wider suite of new metrics and KPIs.

But do you know who hasn鈥檛 yet realized the fruits of that labor? The corporate C-Suite.

Jump to 鈫�

2026 State of the Corporate Law Department Report

The , released today by the 成人VR视频 Institute, reveals a disconnect between how GCs and their corporate law departments view their own alignment to the wider business, and what C-Suite executives believe the legal department contributes. Within this gap, the message is clear: GCs not only need to align with their organizations鈥� overall business strategy, they need to learn how to prove that alignment to the rest of the company.

Indeed, when asked how they view legal鈥檚 contribution to the rest of the business, 86% of GCs surveyed said they viewed the legal function as a significant contributor. However, only 17% of other C-Suite executives said the same 鈥� and 42% said legal contributes little or not at all.

As the report explains, this disconnect lays the inherent groundwork for the tension facing many GCs today. While they are increasingly aiming to align to business standards, the rest of the organization is not recognizing those actions. Instead, many C-Suites are looking for even more out of today鈥檚 legal departments to prove their contributions to organizations鈥� business imperatives.

As in past years, many in-house legal departments are being tasked to do more with less. Nearly half of GCs cited staffing and resource constraints as the top barrier they face to delivering additional value. Indeed, many said they expected outside counsel spend in some key areas 鈥� such as regulatory work and mergers & acquisitions 鈥� to remain high. As of the fourth quarter of 2025, more than one-third (36%) of GCs said they expect to increase overall spend on outside counsel over the next year, while only 20% said they plan to decrease their spend.

Despite legal departments’ gains, their C-Suites are looking for them to take the next step, turning operational excellence into business success.

Not surprisingly, many GCs said they view technology as one of the primary ways they have to combat these resourcing and cost issues. In fact, the proportion of GCs mentioning technology as a strategic priority entering 2026 doubled over the year prior. Legal departments have begun to feel positive effects of AI in their own organizations, the report notes, such as increased efficiency or time feed up for strategic work.

Despite these gains, C-Suites are looking for are looking for their legal functions to take the next step, turning operational excellence into business success. This can take a number of different forms, such as explicitly tying advice to client business objectives, presenting legal spend in the context of the business by showing it as a percentage of revenue, or approaching risk management with the goal of aiding business imperatives. 鈥淲hen we have a risky legal subject, the company never prefers just to see the legal opinion,鈥� said one retail GC. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e also requesting you to drive them how to make a decision.鈥�

AI and technology should also be approached in this same way, the report argues. Although almost half of all corporate legal departments have some type of enterprise-wide GenAI tool, according to the survey, very few are collecting success metrics around AI鈥檚 implementation or linking its use to business revenue. Put a different way, many legal departments are focused on unlocking capacity, rather than deploying capacity in a business-centric way 鈥� much to the chagrin of their C-Suites.

Although legal departments have established a solid foundation upon which a business can stand, ultimately, C-Suites don鈥檛 want just a foundation. They want help building the entire house, the report shows, directly enabling the services that companies provide to customers. In that, GCs and legal departments have more work to do, not only tying strategy to overall business initiatives but actively communicating how the legal function鈥檚 work aids the company as a whole.

You can download

a full copy of the 成人VR视频 Institute’s “” here

Key takeaways:

• • • Structural change in firms 鈥� The traditional law firm pyramid, in which junior lawyers perform high-volume work at billable rates, is losing its foundation as AI compresses tasks that once took hours and clients increasingly bring more work in-house.

    • Finding new ways to train 鈥� AI-powered simulations are emerging as a concrete answer to the associate training problem, allowing new lawyers to build courtroom skills faster and fail safely behind closed doors.

    • The associate role isn’t dying, it’s being redefined 鈥� Those law firms that figure out the right mix of legal training, technological fluency, and management skills will have a significant edge over those that are still debating it.

NEW YORK 鈥斕齇n more than one occasion, I have written seriously and at length about the death of the billable hour. I’ve argued that alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) are the future, that the economic logic of hourly billing is irreconcilable with AI-driven productivity gains, and that the industry needs to prepare for a fundamentally different pricing model. I meant every word. I still do.

Yet, at last week鈥檚 one attendee pointed out they鈥檝e been hearing about the death of billable hour since the 1990s. At this point, it’s less a prediction and more of a tradition. Indeed, Matthew Kohel, a partner at Saul Ewing, said despite the legal press coverage connecting AI to the billable hour’s demise that narrative is now entering its third or fourth decade. And Kohel said his firm simply isn’t seeing meaningful client-driven movement toward AFAs.

So let鈥檚 be honest: the billable hour is not dead, and in fact, it may not be even close to dead.

However, if you’re looking for something that is facing a genuine existential reckoning 鈥� something the legal industry whispered about in the early days of generative AI (GenAI) and is now discussing openly 鈥� Legalweek 2026 may have found it. It turns out the billable hour was never the thing in danger, rather it鈥檚 the person billing the hours.

It’s the associate.

The question nobody wanted to ask out loud

The future of the junior lawyer surfaced in virtually every breakout session across the three-days event, and while it may not be the point of inception for the question, it was certainly the moment this idea graduated from a half-whispered aside to main-stage conversation.

Moreover, the problem has grown more urgent since its inception in the early GenAI days, when the question was simply whether a firm would need fewer associates. Now, that question hasn’t gone away, but it’s been joined by harder ones concerning training, hiring, and legal and technical skills. For example, what if AI is already better than a junior associate at some of the tasks that defined the role in the past? And what happens if someone says it out loud?

Someone said it out loud.

If you’re looking for something that is facing a genuine existential reckoning, Legalweek 2026 may have found it. It turns out the billable hour was never the thing in danger, rather it鈥檚 the person billing the hours.听It’s the associate.

During a panel on Measuring What Matters, the conversation turned to client trust. Clients want to know: How can you be sure AI will catch everything? How do you trust it to find what matters across 5,000 pages of documents?

The response from the panel was direct, and it landed like a brick in the room: it’s 5,000 pages, and someone was reading those five thousand pages. That someone is an associate. If that associate 鈥� who, more often than not, is one of the least experienced lawyers in the building 鈥� is the one reading all those pages, why would you trust them to do it better than a machine?

While that question hung in the air during the panel, it does deserve to sit with you for a moment afterward. Because embedded in it is the uncomfortable arithmetic that drives the entire associate question. The traditional law firm pyramid is built on a base of junior lawyers performing high-volume, lower-complexity work such as document review, due diligence, first-pass research, and doing so at rates that generate revenue while the activity is simultaneously (in theory) training the next generation of partners. If AI can do that base-layer work faster, cheaper, and with accuracy that one panelist described as “beyond very good,” then the pyramid doesn’t just shrink. It loses its foundation.

Barclay Blair, Senior Managing Director of AI Innovation at DLA Piper, noted that tasks like due diligence on some types of financial contracts are already being compressed to two hours, down from 15 to 20 鈥� with zero hours being a realistic possibility in the near future.

Further, as one attendee observed, clients increasingly are adopting AI internally, and they’re bringing work in-house that was previously sent to outside counsel. Clearly, the work that trained generations of associates isn’t just being automated 鈥� in some cases, it’s leaving the firm entirely.

Fewer reps, greater weight

Yet here is where it would be easy (and wrong) to write the doom-and-gloom version of the future, in which AI replaces associates, the pipeline collapses, nobody knows how to train lawyers anymore, civilization crumbles, etc. It’s a clean narrative, but it’s also not what Legalweek panels actually said.

Because alongside the anxiety, something else was happening. People were building answers.

In another panel, Developing the Future Lawyer, panelists spent an hour in the weeds of what associate training actually looks like when the old model breaks down 鈥� and the conversation was far more concrete than you might expect.

Panelist spent an hour in the weeds of what associate training actually looks like when the old model breaks down 鈥� and the conversation was far more concrete than you might expect.

Panelist Abdi Shayesteh, Founder and CEO of AltaClaro, laid out the core problem with precision, noting that there’s a growing gap in critical thinking among associates. Templates getting copy-pasted without relevance analysis, and there is a lack of knowing what you don’t know. And the traditional training methods such as videos, lectures, and passive learning, don’t fix it. Indeed, those outdated models may be making it worse. Shayesteh鈥檚 analogy was blunt: You don鈥檛 learn to swim by watching videos 鈥� you need to jump into the deep end.

His solution is AI-powered simulations. Not hypothetical ones, but working deposition simulations available today, with real-time AI feedback, in which associates can practice cross-examination, deal with opposing counsel objections, and build the muscle memory that used to require years of live experience.

Kate Orr, Managing Director of Practice Innovation at Orrick, picked up the thread with two observations that reframed the stakes. First, AI simulations allow associates to fail behind closed doors, a radical improvement over the old model, in which blowing it had real consequences because failure often happened directly in front of the partners Second, the tool isn’t just for juniors. Even experienced lawyers are using simulations to test different approaches, tweak personas, and sharpen arguments. Orrick’s own Supreme Court team had a lawyer use AI to review a draft brief and identify paragraphs that could be tighter.

Todd Heffner, Partner at Smith, Gambrell & Russell, said the real question isn’t whether associates will use AI, but rather whether it gets them to lead at trial in year 10 instead of year 20. Right now, most associates are lucky to see the inside of a courtroom in their first seven years, and even then, they spend most of their time back in the hotel prepping for the more experienced attorneys instead of arguing themselves. If simulations can compress that learning curve, the associate’s career doesn’t disappear, rather, it gets accelerated.

The dinosaur that adapted

During the Measuring What Matters panel, Mitchell Kaplan, Managing Director of Zarwin Baum, introduced himself with a memorable bit of self-deprecation: He’s a dinosaur 鈥� but one, he clarified, who understands how AI can revolutionize what he does.

Kaplan’s perspective threaded through both days of programming like a quiet counterweight to the anxiety. He’d seen this before 鈥� not AI specifically, but the fear of it. He watched the legal industry transition from physical libraries to digital research tools, and he watched attorneys adapt. And his message was consistent: the work changes, but the need for lawyers doesn’t disappear. Associates may be taking shortcuts, but they still need to read, still need to review, and still need to think.

They’re developing differently than his generation did, Kaplan said, but it鈥檚 the same way every generation develops differently from the one before it. And different doesn’t mean wrong.

The work changes, but the need for lawyers doesn’t disappear. Associates may be taking shortcuts, but they still need to read, still need to review, and still need to think.

It’s a perspective that found an unexpected echo in the Enterprise Alignment panel. Mark Brennan, a partner at Hogan Lovells, relayed a comment he heard at a previous AI conference: The next generation of entry-level jobs will be managers 鈥� because they’ll be managing agents and other tech tools. Brennan admitted he didn’t have all the answers on what that means for legal training, but the implication was clear. The associate role isn’t dying, instead, it’s being redefined. And the firms that figure out what that redefined role looks like, what mix of legal training, technological fluency, critical thinking, and management skills it requires, will have a significant advantage over those firms that are still debating it.

Another panelist, Andrew Medeiros, Managing Director of Innovation at Troutman Pepper Locke, made a prediction that felt like the sharpest version of this idea. He said that at some point, new lawyers are going to be doing simulated matters as a standard part of the development process. Eventually, there’s going to be a generation that walks in as new attorneys and finds themselves litigating right away.

That’s not the death of the associate. Rather, that’s the beginning of a different kind of associate 鈥� one who arrives at the courtroom sooner, with different preparation, carrying different tools.

The billable hour, for all the prophecies, refuses to die. The associate, it turns out, has no intention of dying either 鈥� just evolving. Mitchell Kaplan called himself a dinosaur 鈥� but Legalweek was full of dinosaurs, and every one of them was adapting and in that adaptation, thriving. The harder question is whether the firms that forged them will be brave enough to follow.

You can find more of听our coverage of Legalweek events听here

Key insights:

• • • • Creating prototypes of IP-protected teaching tools 鈥� Law school faculty can build working AI teaching tool prototypes in one to two hours without IP worries because key optional settings enable a closed system to ensure professors’ intellectual property remains protected.

      • Strong prompting skills create faster prototypes 鈥� The best instructions initially set the AI’s character, explains what the AI needs to accomplish, lists which documents to reference exclusively, describes how the response should be formatted, and mentions any applicable legal jurisdiction limits.

      • Feedback from students is positive 鈥� Students鈥� responses show AI simulators reduce anxiety and build confidence by providing unlimited low-stakes practice opportunities that make legal concepts more digestible through active dialogue rather than passive reading.

Law schools face a persistent challenge on how to provide individualized skills practice when one professor must serve many students. And today鈥檚 traditional legal education offers limited opportunities for students to practice oral arguments, evidentiary objections, and witness examinations. Indeed, the repetition necessary to build authentic courtroom skills does not scale easily with law professors in the classroom alone.

To address this challenge, at the University of Missouri鈥揔ansas City School of Law听 that simulate trial judges, three-panel appellate courts, witnesses, and evidentiary objection scenarios. Prof. Serra has seen firsthand how these tools give students unlimited, low-stakes practice opportunities that reduce their anxiety while building confidence in their legal reasoning and judgement.

Building your first AI learning tool, step by step

Creating custom AI teaching tools requires far less technical expertise than most professors would assume. As Prof. Serra explains, if you have a general idea of what you want the tool to accomplish, then 鈥測ou can have a working prototype in less than two hours from idea to execution.”

The process begins with choosing a large language model (LLM) platform, such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, and securing a paid subscription, which most law schools will provide, she explains. During the sign-up process, optional settings enable a closed system to ensure law professors鈥� intellectual property is not shown to the students and is not used to train the LLMs.

Next, you should gather class materials, including slides, case files, manuals, and problems the professor has already created. After that, it is necessary to define one specific use case, such as an evidentiary objections practice tool, a Socratic method simulator, or a client interview assistant.

The building process itself takes about one to two hours and requires no coding skills. 鈥淵ou just start talking to the LLM like you are training a teaching assistant to do exactly what you want to do,” Prof. Serra adds.

Having built many tools, she highlights three critical components that are necessary for the efficient, useful, and flexible prototype. These include:

1. Prompting skills

Effective prompting is key to generating a good prototype. 听According to Prof. Serra, the ideal prompt includes defining the AI’s role (You are a trial judge in a federal district court), specifying the task the AI should deliver, identifying which documents to use exclusively, describing the desired output format, and including any jurisdictional constraints.

2. Multimodal features in AI tools

Most platforms allow for voice-activated chat mode, in addition to typing back and forth, which helps students respond out loud in real time. Custom AI tools also have shareable links, which enables easy deployment to students. Once a student engages with the tool, they can send back a transcript of the interaction. Some platforms even allow shareable audio files so students can get feedback from their professors on skills performance, not just content.

3. Verifying reliability

Evaluating the quality of the AI output is important but naturally varies by use case. For classroom tools, Prof. Serra recommends deploying prototypes quickly and using students as testers. If the tool produces outputs with inaccuracies, she encourages students to bring these errors to class for discussion. That way, everyone learns how to critically diagnose problems with AI outputs. A variety of problems cause AI inaccuracies 鈥� the AI itself, poor prompting, incorrect legal reasoning, or incomplete training.

For wider deployment without the builder鈥檚 direct oversight, Prof. Serra recommends an extended period of testing and iteration. Her tool, MootMentorAI, which simulates a three-judge appellate panel for first-year law students preparing for oral argument, is one example. Because MootMentorAI was developed for use by a colleague, Prof. Serra worked with a research assistant to conduct 80 simulations over the course of a semester 鈥� 40 from the plaintiff鈥檚 perspective and 40 from the defendant鈥檚 perspective 鈥� to verify reliability and improve performance before deployment without her supervision.

Overcoming adoption barriers among peers

Faculty resistance remains the most significant barrier to deploying AI-enabled teaching tools in legal education. “There’s lots of faculty pushback, distrust, and a healthy dose of skepticism with AI,” Prof. Serra acknowledges, arguing that even so, AI-powered tools are teaching assets for all law school courses. 鈥淓ven in doctrinal classes that run on traditional Socratic dialogue, professors can still use AI to reinforce learning outside the classroom through tools, such as podcast-style lectures, a multiple-choice practice assistant, tools to enable issue-spotting, and essay practice tied to course fact patterns.鈥�

Common concerns among law school faculty include confidentiality, intellectual property protection, fear of revealing exam content, and perceived lack of technical expertise. However, Prof. Serra points out that these fears often stem from her colleagues鈥� misunderstanding of how closed systems work. Indeed, if privacy settings are correctly deployed, uploaded materials will not be used to train public models and students cannot access source documents.

Indeed, the most effective strategy for overcoming resistance is personal demonstration, she says, noting that she frequently sits down with colleagues virtually to build tools based on the colleague鈥檚 own use case. She鈥檚 built everything from a Startup CEO simulator for a business course, to an interview assistant for Career Services, to a simulated forensics expert for students to cross-examine. This grassroots approach, combined with speaking at conferences and identifying super fans who can champion the technology, gradually builds institutional buy-in, she adds.

Multifaceted student feedback

Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with learners describing how AI simulators make legal skills training more accessible, more engaging, and less intimidating. In fact, students are often surprised by how convincingly AI tools can simulate judges, witnesses, and other real-world lawyering scenarios. They also appreciate having permission to use AI as a legitimate learning aid.

They also report that real-time interaction makes course concepts more digestible because these tools turn learning into an active dialogue rather than passively staring at a casebook. Finally, students say the simulators reduce anxiety before oral arguments or presentations by enabling unlimited, low-stakes repetition that builds confidence and keeps practice from feeling overwhelming.

Clearly, AI tools are quickly becoming essential learning infrastructure, and legal education cannot afford to treat them as optional add-ons if it expects to stay relevant. As a growing chorus of educators and employers warns that institutions must evolve, the real question is whether schools will build responsible, faculty-guided systems fast enough to meet students where the profession is headed.

When deployed thoughtfully, these platforms can scale individualized skills training, deepen engagement beyond the casebook, and build durable confidence that law students can carry into their future legal practice.

You can download a full copy of the 成人VR视频 Institute鈥檚听recent white paper, , here

Key findings:

• • • The market remains strong, but growth is difficult 鈥� Australian law firms are still posting solid demand and rate growth in the first half of FY 2026, yet the pace is becoming more challenging to sustain.

    • Australia is no longer a single legal market, but three distinct ones 鈥� The report identifies three clearly differentiated law firm segments: Large firms leading demand growth through aggressive investment; Big 8 firms emphasizing pricing power and cost discipline; and Midsize firms pursuing steadier, more moderate growth.

    • Early signals suggest GenAI is reshaping productivity and leverage 鈥� Changes in hours worked across seniority levels point to possible early impacts of GenAI; and while overall productivity is stable, non鈥慹quity partners and associates are logging fewer hours, while senior associates and equity partners are working more.

The Australian legal market enters the back half of FY 2026 with strong topline numbers, but beneath the surface, the market is working harder to maintain its momentum. Firms are navigating slower rate growth, shifting demand patterns, and the early tremors of what may prove to be a generative AI-driven transformation.

Solid footing, harder-won gains

Australian law firms built an impressive track record over the post-pandemic era, and the first half of FY 2026 shows that run may not be over yet 鈥� although its character is changing. Demand growth of 4.8% year-to-date sits a full percentage point above the average quarterly pace since FY 2022, according to the 成人VR视频 Institute’s just-released 2026 Australia: Midyear Legal Market Update report. Worked rates, meanwhile, rose 4.7%, which is respectable, but a noticeable step down from the 5.4% average growth firms had enjoyed since FY 2022.

At the practice level, the picture is broadly encouraging. Both transactional and counter-cyclical practice groups are accelerating, with workplace relations leading all practices at 9.9% year-to-date growth and corporate general close behind at 7.7%. However, a potential warning sign lies in the divergence among each macro-category’s flagship practice: insolvency & restructuring is surging at 7.9%, while mergers & acquisitions sits in contraction at -2.1%. If dealmaking remains subdued while restructuring activity accelerates, transactional practices could face meaningful headwinds in the quarters ahead.

Three markets, not one

Perhaps the most significant finding in this year’s report is what the market-wide averages have been concealing. Last year’s Australia State of the Legal Market report highlighted growing competition between the Big 8 and a broader group of Large law firms that were challenging the Big 8鈥檚 dominance. This year, a refined three-segment framework reveals that the former Large category was actually masking two very different stories, between Large firms and a newly identified set of Midsize firms.

The newly delineated Large firms have emerged as the clear demand leaders, posting nearly 7% year-to-date growth 鈥� roughly double their peers 鈥� fueled by aggressive investment and expansion. The Big 8, by contrast, are leaning into pricing power and cost discipline, growing demand at a more measured 2.7%. And the Midsize cohort, at 2.4% demand growth, is charting a balanced, moderate course.

The profitability divergence is even more striking. Since FY 2022, the firms now classified as Large have grown profits per lawyer by 27.4%, while Midsize firms managed just 3.1% 鈥� much closer to the Big 8’s 7.1% than to their former stablemates. What previously appeared to be a broad-based challenge to the elite was, in reality, concentrated among a smaller group of high performers that were pulling the average upward.

Early signals of AI-driven change

The report also surfaces a potentially significant development in law firm productivity. While overall hours worked per month ticked up slightly for the average qualified fee earner, the gains are unevenly distributed. Non-equity partners recorded their third consecutive productivity decline, and junior and mid-level associates are also slightly down. Yet senior associates and equity partners are logging more hours, keeping overall numbers stable. One possible explanation is GenAI 鈥� if firms are deploying these tools most heavily on research, drafting, and document review tasks that traditionally filled junior and mid-level associate hours, this is precisely the pattern we would expect to see. While it’s too early to draw solid conclusions, the distribution of hours may represent an early sign of how AI is beginning to reshape the traditional leverage model.

There is also a note of caution from firms鈥� clients. 成人VR视频 Market Insights data shows Australian general counsel growing more conservative in their spending outlook, with net spend anticipation for overall legal work dropping to 0 points. That means just as many GCs see their legal spend increasing as those that anticipating it decreasing.

Interestingly, international legal spend tells a different story 鈥� Australia-based GCs are increasingly looking outward, with the Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions emerging as areas of particular activity, while Europe has cooled. For Australian firms with cross-border ambitions, the short-term opportunity may lie to the global east and south rather than west.

Looking into the second half of the year

As the Australian legal market moves into the second half of FY 2026, the story is no longer one of uniform prosperity but rather, one of strategic differentiation. Demand remains healthy, profitability is solid, and expense discipline is improving; however, growth is no longer evenly distributed. The law firms that thrive in the quarters ahead will be those that understand which game they’re playing. In an increasingly segmented market, adaptability 鈥� not scale alone 鈥� will define success.

You can download a full copy of the 成人VR视频 Institute’s 鈥�2026 Australia: Midyear Legal Market Update鈥� report by filling out the form below:

You can read TRI鈥檚 latest 鈥淚nside the Shift鈥� feature,听Premortem: Your 2028 agentic AI pilot program failed听here

Picture this: It鈥檚 2028, your law firm spent real money on an agentic AI pilot, and now it鈥檚 quietly been shut down. No press release, no victory lap 鈥� just a post鈥憁ortem that nobody wants to read. In our latest听Inside the Shift feature article, we see that such a future is very likely unless firms start preparing for agentic AI in a way that鈥檚 very different than how they think they should.

The big idea is simple but uncomfortable: Success with generative AI (GenAI) does not mean your organization is ready for agentic AI. GenAI works because it鈥檚 forgiving. You can paste text into a tool, get a decent answer, and move on 鈥� even if your data is messy and your workflows live in people鈥檚 heads. Agentic AI doesn鈥檛 work that way. It expects clean data, documented processes, and clear rules. If your firm runs on institutional memory, workarounds, and a kind of just ask Linda problem-solving process, then the system will eventually break down.

To examine this and many more situations, the 成人VR视频 Institute (TRI) has launched a new feature segment,听Inside the Shift, that leverages our expert analysis and supporting data to tell some of the most compelling stories professional services today.

Our latest Inside the Shift feature, Premortem: Your 2028 agentic AI pilot program failed听by Bryce Engelland, Enterprise Content Lead for Innovation & Technology for the 成人VR视频 Institute, walks us through two fictional but painfully familiar failure stories of how two separate firms handled their agentic AI pilot programs.

The author explains how the first firm moves fast after crushing their GenAI rollout and assuming agentic AI is just the next logical step. Everything looks great in a sandbox; but then the system hits real鈥憌orld chaos: Undocumented exceptions, fragmented document storage, and conflict checks that only work because humans intuitively know when something feels off. One bad intake decision later, client trust is damaged and the pilot is frozen. In this example, the tech didn鈥檛 fail 鈥� the organization did.

The second firm goes the opposite direction. They鈥檙e cautious, thoughtful, and obsessed with governance. They build guardrails, limit risk, and launch a perfectly reasonable pilot. And then鈥� nothing happens. Attorneys ignore the system 鈥� not because they hate AI, but because using it only adds risk with no reward. If it works as it鈥檚 supposed to, nothing changes; but if something goes wrong, they鈥檒l be blamed. So, unsurprisingly, the rational choice is to nod in meetings and quietly keep doing things the old way until the project dies of inertia.

The challenge is that “preparing” doesn’t mean what most people think. It doesn’t mean buying early, and it doesn’t mean waiting for maturity. Rather, preparing means understanding now why these systems fail, and building the institutional capacity to avoid those failures when the technology arrives in full.

The feature article points out the common thread here: These failures have very little to do with AI capability; rather, they鈥檙e about incentives, documentation, and institutional honesty. Firms that succeed with agentic AI won鈥檛 be the ones that buy in early or wait patiently. The winners, the piece explains, be the ones doing the boring, unsexy work now: Writing things down, fixing information architecture, identifying hidden dependencies, and aligning rewards so adoption isn鈥檛 all risk and no upside.

In short, this article isn鈥檛 a warning about technology. It鈥檚 a warning about pretending your organization is ready when it鈥檚 not 鈥� and mistaking optimism or caution for preparation.

So, dive a little deeper behind the headlines about AI adoption and how to make agentic AI work for your organization. Click through and read today鈥檚 Inside the Shift feature. It might help you see more clearly than before whether the path your organization is pursuing with agentic AI will carry it over the goal line and into the next decade鈥� or leave your team watching from the sidelines.

You can find more听Inside the Shift feature articles听from the 成人VR视频 Institute here