The CLOC Global Institute 2025 brought together legal professionals, technologists, and operations experts to unpack the shifting role of legal in the age of AI. Our team had the pleasure of attending and came away with a sharp sense of where the market is heading, what’s working, and where teams are still struggling.
Below, we’ve captured seven of the most prominent themes that emerged across the AI-focused sessions and discussions:
AI success in legal isn’t just about buying the best tool; it’s about building AI fluency across the team. A standout example came from Workday Legal, which made AI training mandatory and tied usage to personal KPIs. This wasn’t about checking a box. It was a deliberate culture shift, reinforced through peer-led demos and everyday habits.
🔑 Takeaway: Skill up first. Equip your team with training and establish low-friction methods for using AI in daily work. The tools will only go as far as your people can take them.
No matter how sophisticated the tools, the real bottleneck is adoption. Many leaders at CLOC acknowledged they underestimated the resistance to change, even from high-performing teams. Fear of making mistakes with AI is real.
Those seeing real progress tackled it head-on: incorporating AI into performance reviews, having leadership model AI use, and regularly asking, “How did you use AI today?”
🔑 Takeaway: Adoption won’t happen by accident. Incentivise change, lead by example, and make daily AI use part of the team culture.
AI isn’t a side hustle anymore; it’s part of the daily rhythm. From meeting summaries to quick contract reviews, legal teams are embedding AI into their everyday workflows. One team even built a working SharePoint bot over a weekend with no coding experience, proving that small, tactical wins can deliver real momentum.
🔑 Takeaway: Focus on daily pain points. Simple, consistent use builds more confidence and long-term value than isolated “AI transformation” projects.
The line between buyer and builder is blurring. Teams are increasingly building their own AI tools in-house using public models or productivity platforms like Copilot or NotebookLM. In some cases, non-technical staff built apps in days that would have once taken IT months.
This raises the bar for vendors: if a product is just a wrapper on GPT-4, legal teams are asking, why not build it ourselves?
🔑 Takeaway: Know your internal capabilities. Don’t lock into rigid vendor contracts unless the value is differentiated, durable, and strategic.
From model updates to new tool launches, the AI space is evolving rapidly. What felt state-of-the-art six months ago may already be outdated. The most forward-thinking teams are embracing this by staying agile: frequently revisiting use cases, retraining staff, and keeping a curious, experimental mindset.
🔑 Takeaway: Ditch the fixed roadmap. Instead, create a learning culture that evolves with the tech, and partner with vendors who can keep pace.
It’s no longer enough to know if AI is being used. Leaders at CLOC emphasized the importance
of understanding how it’s being used and how it’s making people feel. One team shared that 82% of staff reported satisfaction post-AI rollout, strong evidence that the tools are improving their work.
🔑 Takeaway: Measure what matters; from usage patterns to employee sentiment. That’s how you prove long-term ROI and continuously improve.
Perhaps the most inspiring shift we heard? Legal is no longer being asked just to protect the business from AI-related risk. It’s being asked to lead the charge on safe, smart adoption across the enterprise.
The teams doing this well are proactive: setting guardrails early, embedding themselves in AI projects, and creating clear, practical guidance. As one speaker put it, the bigger risk isn’t using AI, it’s using it without legal oversight.
🔑 Takeaway: Legal has a huge opportunity to enable AI innovation responsibly. Be a trusted partner, not a roadblock.
There was plenty of optimism at CLOC, but also realism. AI offers incredible potential, but adoption won’t happen overnight. The best legal ops teams are building for the long term: investing in people, experimenting with purpose, and measuring as they go.
Want to dive deeper into these themes? Watch the full webinar replay: “What We Learned at CLOC Global Institute 2025.”
