AI is everywhere! What does Legal think about it? (Spoiler alert: Legal is pretty skeptical about using AI)

The SF-based software company Retool surveyed 750 tech workers about their AI use and found:

• Legal is the slowest department to adopt AI compared to 9 other departments. From most to least, here are the 10 department’s percentage use of AI: Engineering (45%), Marketing (36.2%), Data Science (32.8%), Product Management (31.1%), Ops (31%), Support (28.4%), Sales (24.9%), Finance (12.7%), HR (10.3%.) and Legal (8.8%).
• 64% of workers say they are allowed to use AI at work today compared to 6 months ago (54%). But 34% say their company’s AI policy is not clear! (Thought in-house lawyers would not be happy to hear that)
• The higher your level, the more likely you use AI. C suite respondents were biggest daily users of AI at 72%,compared to 45-56% at other levels. They also said they saw the highest impact and productivity increases.
• The lower your level, the more likely you may be replaced. 45.7% of respondents thought entry-level individual contributors were most likely to be replaced. Middle managers were second mostly likely considered to be replaced (13.2%), and senior IC/execs seen as lowest risk.

Not surprisingly, Law.com reported that AI is “not meeting Legal’s expectations” according to new research by Bain. Legal’s satisfaction with generative AI decreased from 71% to 53% in 5 months! But “[i]ndustry experts say the dismal survey results indicate that users may have skewed expectations of how generative AI should perform and that, in all likelihood, survey respondents have yet to tap into the best use cases that unlock its true potential.” So Legal apparently is skeptical and slow to adopt new technology (not news, right?).