Like most legal professionals, you probably spend more time than you’d like on routine tasks that take you away from work, like client counseling, strategy development, and analysis. For many firms, generative AI (GenAI) has stepped in to relieve lawyers of some of these repetitive tasks. Agentic AI takes that a step further.

Trained on legal content and workflows, agentic AI does more than just automate. It learns, reasons, and evolves to support your practice. As it adapts to your firm’s operations, it can anticipate your needs, flag relevant precedents, suggest filings, or even drafting strategy briefs ahead of schedule.

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GenAI vs. agentic AI

Plan and execute

Agentic workflows are not bots

How to identify a strong agentic AI solution

Measuring the return

GenAI vs. agentic AI

Both GenAI and agentic AI use large language models and natural language processing. They both increase efficiency by reducing the time you spend on legal tasks. But GenAI is designed to generate pieces of output and create content based on prompts. It can be used as a digital assistant in legal work for:

• Drafting contracts, memos, and emails
• Summarizing case law or deposition transcripts
• Translating legalese into plain language

Built on that foundation, agentic AI can operate in dynamic environments. That means it can plan and execute multi-step legal workflows. It monitors the progress of a task, then adapts to changing needs. You might ask it to prepare a litigation strategy or:

• Research relevant precedents
• Draft motions
• Flag missing documents
• Identify cross-jurisdictional implications
• Sequence tasks for your team

Agentic AI doesn’t just respond; it acts, learns, and adjusts to your case. If this feels slightly ominous, take a closer look. Agentic AI developed by technical experts and based on dedicated legal content can have a profound impact on your practice.

Plan and execute

Agentic AI complements your expertise. When you set goals, agentic AI can map out workflows, break down tasks, and monitor progress. While it can’t lead client meetings, it can fulfill backend requests, prep materials, and keep everything moving smoothly.

A professional-grade agentic AI solution will:

• Boost efficiency. Agentic AI can speed up litigation and transactional processes in legal research, document analysis, and drafting. These agentic workflows, designed by legal experts and supported by trusted legal content, propose logical next steps and execute them at your command.
• Work faster and smarter. Agentic AI quietly progresses from task to task in the background, freeing you to focus on higher-value activities. You can spend time on the work only you can do, like developing client relationships, nuanced strategy, and courtroom preparation.
• Build confidence. By gaining insight into unfamiliar areas of law, agentic workflows can guide you through nuanced practice areas with contextual recommendations and structured execution.

Of course, human oversight remains essential. Reviewing AI-generated documents and guiding the solution ensures it works the way your firm does: ethically, accurately, and efficiently.

Agentic workflows are not bots

If you’ve ever been frustrated with the limitations of online chatbots, you should know agentic AI is different. Bots operate within narrow parameters and are built to handle simple, one-off tasks like retrieving information from a company database.

Agentic workflows, on the other hand, are intelligent tools that work toward defined goals. They rely on advanced logic to tackle complex problems, adapt as your workflows evolve, and interact with other tools to move work forward without needing step-by-step instructions.

How to identify a strong agentic AI solution

Not all agentic AI is created equal. To find a solution that’s effective and professional-grade, look for these core features:

• Trusted content: The solution pulls from verified, industry-specific sources you recognize and respect.
• Benchmarked functionality: It provides demonstrated performance that handles large volumes and identifies complex themes.
• Strong security: The technology has clear data encryption and complies with standards like HIPAA, GDPR, and SOC 2.
• Seamless integration: It connects easily with industry-leading platforms like Westlaw, Practical Law, and Microsoft 365 without extra effort.
• Unified experience: The solution supports your full workflow from start to finish, not just an isolated task.

What to avoid

Use caution when reviewing vendors whose solutions include:

• Unverified data sources or research functions that haven’t been tested
• Vague or missing security details
• Costly custom integrations with limited scalability
• Tools that only solve part of your workflow, leading to inefficiency

Where to begin

Adopters of agentic AI are already seeing stronger performance and a competitive edge. If you’re new to it, start with low-stakes tasks like scheduling or formatting documents. It’s helpful to identify your firm’s technology “power users” who can champion adoption and partner with providers that offer training and integration support.

Measuring the return

To measure ROI, start by gauging how long certain tasks usually take — like formatting documents, conducting research, or preparing drafts — without any support. Now, consider how much faster those tasks and the complete workflow could be with an agentic AI solution.

By looking at the time saved and what that extra time allows you to accomplish, you’ll start to see the real value: smoother workflows, less manual effort, and more space to focus on meaningful work. You’ll be able to redeploy your time more strategically, improve client satisfaction and retention, and win more work.

Now is the time to reflect on where your current workflows slow you down, and how they could be smarter, faster, and more adaptive. Thomson Reuters CoCounsel Legal is a professional-grade legal solution that combines agentic capabilities with trusted content and strong security — giving legal professionals the speed, confidence, and control to tackle complex tasks with ease.

CoCounsel Legal

Work smarter with CoCounsel, seamlessly integrated with Westlaw, Practical Law, Microsoft 365, and DMS partners

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Nvidia, the company powering essentially the entire AI boom, is now looking to rent back its own chips. According to The Information, Nvidia has now signed a deal with Lambda, a cloud service provider in which it has already invested, to lease back some of its own GPUs over a period of time.

The details of the purported agreement are unclear, but reports suggest a four-year lease for 10,000 GPUs, valued at approximately $1.3 billion, followed by a separate $200 million deal for an additional 8,000 (likely lower-end/older) chips. These are Nvidia GPU servers that Lambda once bought from the company, and now the chipmaker wants to rent these back. This contract will make Nvidia, by far, the biggest client under Lambda’s belt.

Lambda, for those unaware, is a cloud startup that opened its doors in 2012. It rents out AI server capacity to companies like Microsoft and Amazon, but is also in line to serve Google, OpenAI, xAI, and Anthropic.

Interestingly, these leased GPU servers will reportedly be used in-house by Nvidia’s researchers, much like Amazon and Microsoft use Lambda’s services. Both companies are hyperscalers themselves, but they mainly utilize Lambda’s servers for internal purposes rather than subletting them through AWS or Azure platforms, respectively.

For Nvidia, this is nothing unusual as it’s predictably biased toward companies that use its products. CoreWeave, another AI startup, was majorly aided by Nvidia with multiple investment rounds and a very similar GPU-renting deal. CoreWeave even sought a $2.3 billion loan using its H100 GPUs reserve as collateral back in 2023.