The Environmental Impact of Generative AI and the Rise of Frugal AI

We’re back for our sixth year and what a year it has been for legaltech, AI and innovation!

If 2023 was the year to figure out what generative AI was all about, then 2024 was most definitely the year for pilots, experimentation, and strategies for data and AI. Well, that was how it went for some, but not everyone…

In this, our annual year in review, we discussed what happened and where the dust settled in 2024 with Caryn Sandler, Partner and Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer at Gilbert + Tobin and Co-chair of the CLI Advisory Board; Graeme Grovum, Head of Legal Technology and Client Services at Allens and Host of CLI’s Legal Ops Clinic in 2024; and Tessa van Duyn, CEO and Practice Leader at Moores and member of the CLI Advisory Board.

We started this session by discussing the discernible shift in mindset during 2024 from questioning if the legal industry should engage with generative AI, to embracing it as well as understanding and learning how to manage its issues – we collectively reached a new level of AI maturity! 

As we dug deeper on impacts, we identified some key changes enabled by AI, particularly generative AI, to the business and practice of law this year, including:

• Non-negotiable “must haves” for the tech – easy to use, convenient, clearly identifiable benefits.
• New levels of tech engagement – GenAI creates a space where “personal life meets professional life” and consequently its uptake has been faster and at an unprecedented scale. 
• Redefining collaboration – different partnerships, different interactions, different client engagements, emerging coalitions of competitors working and learning together, all focused on building a strong legal ecosystem that delivers on the potential, promises, and opportunities of generative AI but also knows how to manage its challenges.
• Redefining legal work - from conception to delivery and everything in between.
• Redefining value – what matters most, authenticity or efficiency and, are they the only choices? Where does pricing and billing by the hour fit into all of this?
• Redefining capabilities for practice – meeting people where they are so they can work out where they need to go together and individually.
• Redefining metrics – are we measuring impact or use or something else? Are metrics the same for this tech for all its uses? We need to know if the investment in the tech is moving us forward, or not, but it may be well into 2025 before we work this one out.
• Redefining employment and workforce – employees are now in search of digitally enabled employers and employers in search of digitally and data literate employees. Is going to a law firm or legal department that is not tech-enabled now a career-limiting move? What will that do to the legal workforce?
• Embracing capabilities where you find them, not where you expect them – making the tech available to everyone can result in an expansion of roles, new roles, and uncovering tech-related capabilities that enhance careers and your workforce where they may have otherwise remained hidden.
• Understanding that the pace and scale of change is now a constant and must be proactively managed. We need to understand the human consequence of this i.e., unparalleled change fatigue and the need to focus on human wellbeing more than ever before.

And, Graeme demonstrated his interactive avatar too – we all want him to build us one!

We wrapped with what will come next in 2025. Will ops teams lead the way? Will our humanity and creativity be best explored through play? Will a growing sophistication in how we use GenAI, especially by clients, reinvent the B2B, B2C and D2C markets?

Thank you sooooo much Caryn, Graeme and Tessa – this is a session we look forward to every year and we’re certain you will too – don’t miss this one! 

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here.

About the Future 50 Series

In the Future 50 Series, we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world.

If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: CLI@collaw.edu.au.