A major survey of 25,000 employees by Big Four firm Deloitte has found that the workforce in general has not seen significant productivity gains from AI – which makes Artificial Lawyer ask: is legal different?

First, let’s look at what the survey of staff in the UK said. The primary finding is that although most people now use AI at work, the majority see very small gains in terms of time saved. Below is the chart for finance, banking and insurance – as there is no special chart for law.

As you can see, only 10% saw time savings of more than five hours per week. If someone is perhaps on a standard contract of 40 hours, then five hours is significant, i.e. 1/8 of their weekly work. If more senior, or in a more demanding area, and working much longer hours, e.g. in investment banking, then even five hours per week is not that great.

Also, only a quarter of staff saw time savings of more than two hours per week, with over one-third saying they used AI, but got no time back from using it.

When you look at what AI is being used for one can perhaps see the problem. Searching for information (most likely tapping the web in general), summarising information, and finessing emails are the top three reasons people are using AI at work.

None of those tasks are that significant, unless your entire job is finessing emails. And most people don’t spend their working lives doing that.…

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