[author: Catherine J. Moynihan**]
The hype around Gen AI has contributed to a wave of interest in how to apply many forms of AI, not just Gen AI. As companies promote the adoption of AI enterprise-wide to remain competitive, some in-house legal departments are enjoying less restraint on investments tied to the use of AI-powered technology. Many are doing it the hard way — trying to apply emerging Gen AI technology to address specific, narrow pain points — and overlooking broader legal operation needs.
While Gen AI can perform incredibly useful tasks, from answering questions about policies to redlining contracts, these tools typically lack the workflow orchestration and administration features that are critical for managing processes and gathering performance management data.
As the interest in using AI-driven technology continues to grow, it makes sense to consider investing in AI-powered workflow automation (WFA) solutions that are quickly adding Gen AI.
Low/No Code Workflow Automation Solutions’ Capabilities
The leading solutions marketed to corporate legal departments (Bryter, Checkbox, Josef, Kim, MyLegal, Neota, OnitX, TAP, and Tonkean) provide workflow applications and “citizen developer” building blocks, along with strong integration, administration, document automation, compliance, and security capabilities.
Buyers of WFA technology are advised to consider how these providers’ approaches align with their needs in the following key areas:
Workflow Management — Controlling the flow of tasks, processes, or actions is generally handled under one of two approaches:
- Decision tree-oriented solutions use a flowchart structure. Their logic-based approach is intuitive to lawyers, with easy-to-follow visual representations, but interdependencies are more difficult to manage.
- Orchestration-focused solutions provide a centralized way to design and control workflows involving multiple tasks, systems, and actors. The tools gather data, monitor status, and trigger the next tasks. They are well-suited for complex workflows, but management can be challenging.
Integration — Interacting with adjacent systems, in the legal department or across functions, involves approaches that can be combined to facilitate making connections without engaging IT:
- Out-of-the-box integrations to commonly used collaboration tools such as Slack, Teams, and Outlook to “meet clients where they are.” They are typically as simple as providing credentials to enable a link between the two systems.
- Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) enables integration with a wide variety of applications and databases. Data transformation is part of the process.
- Third-party iPaaS through established partnerships with middleware solutions, such as Workato or MuleSoft. Separate subscriptions may be needed.
Administration — The activities related to the setup, monitoring, and maintenance of the automation environment, which includes integrations, access control, and oversight of a portfolio of workflows. Mastery can involve a learning curve, so administrator “mindshare” matters.
Document Automation — A number of workflow solutions automate the process of generating personalized documents efficiently and consistently. Common use cases include high-volume or low-risk contracts.
Bulk Processes and Campaigns — Some WFA solutions can launch processes at scale across many users:
- “Batch” processes involve data iteration and parallel execution. Use cases include issuing addenda per new regulations or policies and issuing outside counsel guideline updates — often one-way processes.
- Campaigns are multi-step processes involving a variety of tasks. They provide a “wizard” for executing and tracking progress. They are well-suited for two-way, iterative processes, such as compliance audits and policy management processes.
Compliance and Security — Typically, audit trails and role-based access controls (user, builder, and administrator), while some provide fine-grained permissions using rules, geography, roles, data, actions (e.g., run or edit), and the specific workflow in use. Most WFA solutions provide data residency in both the US and Europe, with an ever-broader range of options.
How AI Supports Workflow Automation
AI appears extensively across low/no code workflow automation solutions. Under this umbrella, more common capabilities include:
- Intelligent document processing, using optical character recognition (OCR) and natural language processing (NLP).
- Data mapping and transformation between different formats, making it easier to integrate and process information from various sources.
- Decision automation using predefined rules and data inputs, which is especially helpful for applying conditional logic to determine workflow paths.
- Machine learning in low-code WFA to support continuous improvement based on new data and changing conditions.
It is interesting to understand what goes on “under the hood,” but the focus should be on how the solution meets anticipated needs. Teams benefit by thoroughly testing solutions and planning for a “human in the loop.” For example, a sophisticated paralegal with an AI-based contract redlining tool can conduct a first-pass analysis, minimizing the number of people needing training.
How Gen AI Is Enhancing WFA Tools
The enthusiasm surrounding Gen AI has driven emerging capabilities to interpret queries, requests, and documents (all unstructured) and generate responses. Here are a few examples:
- Bryter has added “AI Agents” for employees to get answers to policy questions, run health checks on policies, search across a defined knowledge base, extract data, and review contracts for deadlines and clauses.
- Checkbox has enhanced its “front door” to the legal department with an “AI Legal Chatbot” that automatically responds and routes requests based on company policies and playbooks.
- JosefQ, which uses Gen AI for policy Q&A, can be implemented by itself or with Josef’s core WFA tool.
- Neota, in keeping with its modular approach, announced the release of its “Azure OpenAI Building Block” for extracting text, language translations, and drafting context-aware messages.
- OnitX’s “Catalyst Virtual Assistant” answers questions and drafts follow-up emails using the context of stored legal service request, matter, and contracts data.
- Mitratech’s TAP announced enhanced features that include text summarization and natural language search.
- Tonkean’s “AI Front Door,” which classifies legal service requests for routing and reporting, includes a “LegalGPT” chatbot and an “AI Concierge” help feature for business users.
Before the advent of Gen AI, these tools already used AI to interact with clients and to kick off and intelligently execute automated workflows. Now, with Gen AI enhancements, the client interface is more conversational. Chatbots can answer questions clearly and accurately, and lawyers can save time with better search and strong summarization and drafting capabilities.
Legal departments that obtain WFA tools begin harnessing the power of AI and Gen AI within the infrastructure of software solutions that also provide integration, administration, document automation, compliance, and security capabilities. As AI evolves, so will the tools.
Obtain the Key Solution Components to expect, fact-based analysis, and evaluations of the nine Advanced Solutions in the 2024 Hyperion Low/No Code Workflow Automation MarketView™ Report.
** Catherine J. Moynihan is Senior Director, Strategic Intelligence & Advisory for Epiq’s Legal Business Advisory Group overseeing Hyperion Research, Epiq’s legal market intelligence program, as well as spearhead legal advisory intelligence programs for global legal executives focused on legal operations transformation.
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