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Artificial Intelligence ("AI") is perhaps one of the most hyped-up terminologies in this version of the digital era and is no longer alien to the people at large. The term AI was first coined by John McCarthy in 1956 who described AI as allowing a machine to behave in such a way that it would be called intelligent if a human being behaved in such a way. Generally, AI is used as an umbrella term for any computer program or machine that does something smart, meaning the ability of a computer or machine to learn without the need for direct and comprehensive instruction(s).
With its growing application across a plethora of disciplines, it is safe to posit that AI is indeed the next big phenomenon. Since AI-compatible machines can reason and make decisions, people are embracing it, and slowly yet steadily, AI has been creeping into a gamut of professional fields.  The legal profession has not been immune to it. In fact, lawyers around the globe have been warming up to the features of AI applications, and arguably, AI applications have proved to be more persuasive than what would generally have been expected, at least in the context of the legal profession. This is because, AI applications are generally designed to learn how to identify relevant information, recognise mistakes, and spot inconsistencies in an efficient, accurate, and expeditious manner – all of the aspects which are of utmost significance for lawyers.

No one is oblivious to the fact that 'lawyering' is an intense profession that involves tackling of a mammoth amount of legal paperwork, research, reading, and writing – for which, lawyers are required to deal with a huge amount of data which often involves excruciating hours of analysis. Therefore, the features of AI are now being put to use by legal professionals in many instances including in conducting due diligence exercises (for verification, investigation, or audit of a potential deal), legal research, reviewing documents and contracts, analysis of contracts etc.

Without questioning the capability of lawyers to carry out any of the aforesaid lawyering chores efficiently without technological means, AI mechanisms can be engaged to mitigate the rigour of long hours for the lawyers.  For example, Luminance Diligence, an AI-powered document review facility, can help lawyers and businesses with the most rigorous analysis and understanding of the documents, instantly highlighting anomalous areas. In terms of contract review and getting analytics of the same, Kira, a machine learning software, identifies, extracts, and analyses content in contracts. Regarding legal research, LexisNexis claims that their product called Lexis® is a creative online resource that enhances legal research skills by letting a lawyer scour a massive online law library of case laws and other valuable legal content. These are just a few examples of AI-powered computer-based programmes among the numerous other products out there in the world market.