Analyst(s): Keith Kirkpatrick
Publication Date: August 26, 2024
The News: OpenText has announced an enhancement to its Axcelerate eDiscovery platform by integrating Aviator, the company’s AI-powered technology. The integration of Aviator brings advanced analytics, machine learning, and generative AI into the fold, promising to revolutionize how law firms and corporate legal teams handle document review, data analysis, and litigation strategies.
OpenText Axcelerate Integrates AI-Power via Aviator
Analyst Take: Artificial intelligence has been making inroads into various industries, and the legal sector is no exception. However, the adoption has been gradual due to the sector’s inherent conservatism and the high stakes of applying AI to legal decisions. Introducing AI-powered tools like OpenText’s Axcelerate with Aviator marks a significant evolution in this space. AI’s ability to process vast amounts of data quickly and accurately is a game changer for legal teams that traditionally rely on manual document review processes, which are time-consuming and prone to human error.
Axcelerate’s integration with Aviator leverages AI to automate and enhance these processes. The platform’s capabilities include predictive coding, advanced analytics, and generating insights from unstructured data. These features are crucial in modern legal operations, where the volume of data can be overwhelming and the need for precise, actionable insights is critical.
OpenText Axcelerate with Aviator includes the following features:
- Enhanced Predictive Coding: Predictive coding is an AI-driven process that classifies documents based on relevance and importance. With Aviator, Axcelerate can now execute predictive coding more efficiently, reducing the time required for document review while maintaining accuracy.
- Generative AI for Document Analysis: One of the standout features is generative AI, which can create summaries, generate insights, and even suggest legal strategies based on the data reviewed. This speeds up the analysis and provides a deeper understanding of complex datasets.
- Advanced Analytics: Aviator’s advanced analytics capabilities enable more sophisticated data analysis, uncovering patterns and correlations that traditional methods might miss. This is particularly useful in large-scale litigation cases where the volume of documents can be enormous.
- Automation and Workflow Optimization: Legal teams can focus on more strategic activities by automating routine tasks such as data categorization and relevance ranking. Automation also ensures consistency in the review process, reducing the likelihood of oversight.
- Real-time Insights: The integration allows for real-time insights, enabling legal professionals to make informed decisions. This is crucial in litigation, where time is often of the essence.
Strategic Implications for Legal Professionals
Integrating Aviator into Axcelerate enhances the ability to handle large-scale eDiscovery efficiently. In complex cases, the volume of data can be staggering, making manual review impractical. With Aviator’s AI-driven capabilities, legal teams can manage these large datasets more effectively, ensuring no relevant document is overlooked.
Secondly, using AI in predictive coding and advanced analytics can significantly reduce the time and cost associated with document review. Legal cases often involve tight deadlines and high costs, and any tool that can alleviate these pressures is a valuable asset. The ability to automate routine tasks also frees legal professionals to focus on more strategic elements of the case, such as formulating arguments and negotiating settlements.
Moreover, integrating generative AI into the review process opens up new possibilities for legal strategy. Aviator can generate insights from data to suggest strategies that may not be apparent to human reviewers, providing litigators with a competitive edge.
While integrating Aviator into Axcelerate offers numerous benefits, it has challenges. One of the primary concerns is the reliability of AI in high-stakes legal environments. Legal decisions often have significant consequences, and the risk of relying on AI-generated insights must be carefully managed. OpenText must ensure that Aviator’s algorithms are rigorously tested and validated to maintain confidence among legal professionals.
Another consideration is the ethical implications of using AI in legal processes. The use of AI raises questions about transparency and accountability. For example, if a legal decision is based on an AI-generated insight, who is responsible if that insight is flawed? These complex issues must be addressed as AI becomes more integrated into legal operations.
Finally, there is the challenge of adoption. While AI offers clear benefits, the legal sector is traditionally slow to adopt new technologies. OpenText will need robust training and support to ensure that legal teams can effectively use the new capabilities offered by Axcelerate with Aviator.
The Broader Impact on the Legal Industry
The introduction of Aviator into the Axcelerate platform is part of a broader trend toward digital transformation in the legal industry. As data grows in volume and complexity, the need for advanced tools to manage and analyze it becomes increasingly critical. AI-powered platforms like Axcelerate with Aviator represent the next step in this evolution, offering legal professionals the tools they need to navigate the challenges of modern litigation.
In the long term, integrating AI into legal processes could significantly change how law is practiced. For example, automating routine tasks could reduce the need for junior lawyers. At the same time, the ability to generate insights from data could change the role of senior lawyers, who may increasingly rely on AI to inform their decisions. This could lead to restructuring legal teams, with a greater emphasis on technology and data analysis skills.
Furthermore, as AI becomes more prevalent in legal operations, clients will likely demand these capabilities as standard. Law firms that fail to adopt AI-powered tools may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage, particularly in high-stakes litigation, where the ability to process and analyze data quickly and accurately is crucial.
Looking Forward: A Strategic Advantage in a Competitive Landscape
OpenText’s integration of Aviator into its Axcelerate platform represents a significant advancement in legal technology. By leveraging AI to enhance document review, data analysis, and workflow automation, OpenText provides legal professionals with the tools they need to gain a strategic advantage in a competitive landscape.
However, the adoption of AI in legal operations is not without its challenges. OpenText must be ready to address issues around AI’s reliability and the ethics surrounding its use to ensure that these tools deliver on their promise without compromising the integrity of the legal process.
See the complete press release on AI-Powered Legal eDiscovery with OpenText Axcelerate on the OpenText website.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
