A&O unveils AI agents for hire

A&O Shearman is rolling out a suite of AI-powered legal agents with legal AI mega-startup Harvey and plans to sell them not just to clients, but to other law firms as well.

The tools tackle areas like competition/antitrust filing analysis, cybersecurity, fund formation and loan review - work A&O says is "high value" and requires "deep legal expertise and multi-step reasoning."

Built with Harvey, the firm says the tools can conduct research and engage in multi-step reasoning over matter-specific documents and curated data, combining "intermediate outputs into complete work products with transparency and oversight."

The agents will be sold on a subscription or usage basis, with A&O taking a cut of the revenue.

Speaking to the Financial Times, A&O’s head of AI advisory David Wakeling said the technology won’t mean job cuts - just a shift in how senior lawyers spend their time.

Bigger picture

The move looks much less like legal tech experimentation from A&O and a lot more like fully fledged product development with revenue shared between the firm and Harvey.

Many firms are now using AI to boost junior efficiency, but A&O is taking it a step further by embedding what looks like senior lawyer-level expertise into agentic AI systems and monetising the results.

The announcement has similarities with fellow Harvey partner Macfarlanes' "Amplify" tool. That was rolled out earlier this year and is also offered to clients on a subscription basis.

Backdrop

A&O was among the first out of the gate with generative AI, launching ContractMatrix - an AI-powered contract tool - in 2023. The firm told the FT the tool is now used by over 40 large organisations.

The move echoes the firm’s early 2000s "AOSphere" play - building tools from legal know-how and selling them to the market.

That was a huge success by all accounts.

A&O sold part of the business to private equity firms Inflexion and Endicott Capital in October 2023 in a deal that reportedly valued the unit at more than £200 million.

What they said

A&O partner David Wakeling said:

"There has been a lot of hype, but these agents are the first concrete legal use-cases of agentic AI within a multinational law firm - and therefore within much of the commercial landscape.

"These agents do in minutes what previously took several hours, and frustrated people. At A&O Shearman, we have some of the best lawyers in the world - that’s why we’ve put their brains in our tech stack alongside Harvey’s gold standard AI."

Harvey co-founder Winston Weinberg said:

"For decades, the legal industry has relied on the same structure and approach to deliver results for clients. Together with A&O Shearman, Harvey is building agentic workflows that save tremendous amounts of time without sacrificing accuracy and trust. This combination presents a powerful combination with remarkable potential for the industry and for current and future clients."