Clients pressure firm and in-house lawyers to adopt legal AI: DISCO survey

According to the findings of DISCO’s annual study on legal artificial intelligence trends among law firms and corporate legal departments, legal teams have been preoccupied with the question of how much legal AI costs, not whether it is accurate. 

“The Legal industry has resolved the AI capability question much faster than it has resolved the economics question,” said James Park, AI consulting director at DISCO, a litigation technology company. “Legal teams have a greater understanding of what AI can do but very little visibility into what it will cost them to do it.” 

The insights gleaned from the 2026 survey, conducted by Ari Kaplan Advisors, touched on: 

• whether anybody can forecast the amount of legal AI costs 
• how legal AI pricing has shifted from annual subscriptions to consumption-based token and credit models 
• what budgeting challenges consequently arise 

“Pricing transparency has become a bigger constraint on adoption than output, and both law firms and corporations are increasingly demanding better line of sight to both return on investment and the bottom line,” Park said in DISCO’s press release. 

More on DISCO legal AI survey

In summer 2026, Ari Kaplan Advisors conducted an online survey of 104 individuals employed at law firms and in corporate legal departments, along with 33 in-depth interviews. 

“The market is moving so quickly, and I hope this research helps legal teams in law firms and law departments benchmark their performance to drive their organizations forward,” said Ari Kaplan, principal of Ari Kaplan Advisors. “Leaders are now balancing the promise of legal AI with the practical realities of embedding it into the fabric of their operations.” 

Among participants polled: 

• 94 percent had a formal AI policy in their organization, up from 80 percent in the preceding survey 
• 72 described themselves as somewhat or very confident in using legal AI for document review compared with conventional manual review, up from 53 percent 
• 58 percent integrated legal AI into routine legal processes, up from 35 percent 

Pressure to adopt legal AI

Responding corporate legal team members reported feeling pressure to adopt legal AI from the following sources: 

• 76 percent from the client organization’s highest leadership levels, up from 64 percent in the previous survey 
• 55 percent from within the legal department 
• 47 percent from the client company’s board or C-suite, up from 18 percent 
• 27 percent from business units 

Participants at law firms claimed they felt pressure to adopt legal AI from the following sources: 

• 64 percent from clients, up from 39 percent a year ago 
• 38 percent from partners 
• 26 percent from associates 

Respondents cited the following drivers for adopting legal AI: 

• efficiency, according to 92 percent of those working in-house and 91 percent of those at firms
• rising client demand, per 64 percent of those employed at firms 

Agentic AI

Of the survey participants: 

• 62 percent utilized agentic AI for work, including horizon scanning across jurisdictions, weekly legal hold reporting, data extraction, fact chronologies, and document review 
• 10 percent thought legal AI was becoming exclusively agentic, given other respondents’ doubts about control, not capability 

Discovery volume and litigation duration

According to DISCO’s press release, among the survey respondents: 

• 53 percent saw increased discovery workloads, up from 47 percent a year ago, with several participants attributing the higher volume to how AI has brought down the barriers to filing 
• 31 percent observed that the workload remained the same 

Of the participants, 34 percent said complex litigation took longer, down from 39 percent, with 63 percent investing in legal AI to address it. 

More international law news on artificial intelligence

Here are some other recent international law news stories involving AI. 

In late September, Littler Mendelson published the second edition of its labour survey report, which stressed the importance of reviewing and updating labour relations strategies amid rapid AI developments and swiftly evolving workforce and business conditions. 

Blind Justice UK, a justice charity, warned the public against accepting AI chatbots’ recommendations regarding law firms, the Law Society Gazette reported. 

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