The next stage in legal innovation: What AI really means for legal professionals

Agentic AI is quickly reshaping the conversation around legal technology – leaving many legal teams excited and intimidated in equal measure. Agentic AI takes automation one step further and can independently analyse and act on complex legal tasks – cutting costs and boosting efficiency for law firms.  

This will increasingly make a tangible impact – Gartner predicts 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI by 2028, enabling 15% of day-to-day work decisions to be made autonomously. 

The shift toward agentic systems can open up an unprecedented level of innovation for law firms. The expectations are sky high, but firms will also need to consider the impact on control and accountability across legal workflows – and how to implement agentic AI systems effectively within existing legal processes.  

Exploring the opportunities 

The opportunity for AI to drive productivity is clear – with a recent survey by Goldman Sachs showing almost half of legal tasks are ripe for automation. However, until recently, solutions have been limited to chatbots or surface-level tools that provide generic responses, meaning they lack the depth and precision legal professionals require.  

Legal work is complex by nature. Whether it’s revising a contract, updating compliance clauses or managing redlines across multiple document versions, teams often switch between tools and sift through files. Maintaining pinpoint accuracy is crucial, but with each manual step the risk for error increases.    

Legal work can also be hugely time-consuming. Some document editing tasks, such as inserting arbitration provisions, modifying confidentiality language or ensuring data privacy compliance, require multiple checks and updates to be made in different places.  

In each case, the real burden isn’t just the legal thinking – it’s the time lost searching for documents, locating all edit points, drafting changes and verifying consistency. 

Where agentic AI can make a difference 

This is where agentic AI moves from being a helpful tool to an operational imperative. Unlike traditional AI that simply suggests edits or answers questions, agentic AI takes action. It can open documents, apply structured changes and prompt final review autonomously.  

This means it can handle the repetitive mechanics of legal work, leaving professionals to focus on the delivery of legal services, building client relationships and strategic thinking. The key difference is autonomy – acting within a legal workflow while still operating under human oversight. 

As legal work becomes more complex and data-intensive, firms need to move beyond static tools, toward systems that can adapt, respond and act with minimal friction. This doesn’t mean replacing lawyers, but empowering them to accomplish more with less effort. By shifting toward AI that can understand and also execute, firms can streamline operations, reduce administrative burden and focus more on strategic high-value work.  

Integrating agentic AI into a DMS 

For legal teams, the real power of agentic AI lies in where it’s deployed. Embedding AI in your document management system (DMS), instead of accessing it through a general chatbot, is what makes it context-aware, secure and transformative. By embracing the following steps, law firms can make a head start on the next level of AI transformation for the legal sector: 

• Prioritise context: Ensure the AI has access to your matter documents, templates and precedent libraries so it can act with informed precision. 

• Harness built-in security: Use agentic AI within your existing DMS infrastructure to maintain compliance with confidentiality, data privacy, and audit standards. 

• Automate key workflows: Deploy agentic features like clause redlining, version comparison and extraction of key data points to reduce manual input and streamline document cycles. 

• Build and extend your tools: Explore user-friendly platforms to create firm-specific tools and workflows that the AI can operate autonomously. 

• Keep humans in control: Design the AI to suggest and act but always provide review points and audit trails to maintain legal oversight. 

Taking legal AI to the next level  

Agentic AI marks a significant shift in how legal professionals will get their work done. By offloading the repetitive, data-driven tasks that drain time and attention, agentic AI frees up legal professionals to focus on higher value tasks and driving greater client value. 

When paired with no-code app builders and powerful AI search tools, agentic AI can transform a traditional DMS into something far more valuable – a proactive, intelligent legal workspace. It becomes a trusted digital coworker that doesn’t just store documents but helps deliver high-quality work product with greater speed and precision. 

As agentic systems mature and integrations deepen, the legal sector will transform beyond simply querying AI to confidently delegating end-to-end tasks. That transition – from passive assistance to active execution – is what will define the next era of legal technology.