Thomson Reuters focuses on what’s important by leveraging AI

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The advanced automation of tasks will create new opportunities – humans will need to be trained to take advantage of these prospects

IF EVER A technology could be described as being a game changer, generative artificial intelligence is that tech. AI has the potential to fundamentally alter how legal professionals work. Whether these changes will be positive or negative has yet to be seen, but either way, lawyers need to be prepared. Thomson Reuters is ahead of the curve in that regard. Among other steps, they have announced a $100 million annual investment to integrate responsible AI into their content and offerings. To learn more about what Thomson Reuters is doing, in Canada and beyond, to get ready for the change in the game, we spoke with Steven Assie, head of Canada at Thomson Reuters.

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“Lawyers should be prepared with evaluation criteria to make sure they fully understand issues like data residency, the depth and breadth of underlying content, model training protocols, the likelihood of hallucinations, and biases in content”

Steven Assie, Thomson Reuters

There are many exciting updates happening here in Canada. Recently, we moved into our new cutting-edge innovation hub in downtown Toronto. This space at 19 Duncan Street serves as a nucleus for product innovation and collaboration, bringing together members of our news bureau, content and editorial teams, sales teams, and other corporate functions teams all under one roof.

We also recently announced our intention to invest more than $100 million USD annually to integrate responsible generative AI into our flagship content and technology solutions across legal, tax and accounting, and compliance. We’re committed to providing our customers with the very best and trusted solutions at speed.

We have successfully integrated AI-powered technology into our products and solutions for more than 30 years in a transparent and ethical way. For example, in addition to Westlaw Edge Canada’s powerful search capabilities, one of Westlaw’s greatest strengths and competitive differentiators is the decades of underlying editorial expertise. We use technology to showcase this foundational editorial expertise in Westlaw Edge Canada. We’re continuing to develop our own in-house tools, bringing together our trusted content and intelligence from across Westlaw, Practical Law, and Document Intelligence to surface key insights, legal knowledge, and answers to complex questions. We recently demonstrated the potential for a new generative AI-powered research assistant in Westlaw to help make search experiences more interactive and faster for our legal customers. This tool will soon have the capability to deliver research that previously took hours in a fraction of the time, resulting in better outcomes with a more robust and easier user experience. Also, working with Microsoft, we are developing an intelligent drafting solution, powered by our legal products and content – and Copilot – for Word. In Microsoft Word, professionals will be able to use their expertise to edit, validate, and build the final document with integrated access to our knowledge, content, and AI technology. We are working on bringing all these new capabilities to the Canadian market. We’ve got no shortage of interest from customers; I’m talking to them daily right now about how they want these capabilities to be integrated into their workflow and products. It’s an exciting opportunity to sit down with legal leaders here in Canada and listen to how they want to reimagine the way that they serve their clients.

“Generative AI is no different than any technology, which at first can be intimidating. Adopting any technology requires changes to routines and workflows. We have great confidence in the potential of this technological era”

Steven Assie, Thomson Reuters

Over the next five years, both Sree and Smith fear that social inflation and large jury awards could impact pricing and risk selection in the nonprofit space. Smith cautions that we’re not out of the woods yet with COVID-19 litigation, which is something Convelo is watching closely. Davis points to cyber as another key issue nonprofits will have to tackle. “I think cybersecurity is going to be a challenge for the whole industry and is something that we pay really, really careful

I would say that generative AI is no different than any technology, which at first can be intimidating. Adopting any technology requires changes to routines and workflows. We have great confidence in the potential of this technological era and the capability of professionals to make the very best of the opportunities ahead of us. As we’ve seen with E-Discovery and other once-new technologies in the legal space, when the tools are adopted and fit for purpose, tasks like legal research and drafting can be made better, more efficient, and more comprehensive. Topical searches will become smarter. Analytics will become

Can you provide an update about what Thomson Reuters is doing in Canada?

Published 25 SEP 2023

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more human. Workflows will become more intuitive. The legal industry will become more productive, and that should lead to tremendous gains in access to justice. It’s truly a unique and transformative time in the legal space, and I would encourage all lawyers and legal professionals who support the legal industry to lean in and learn as much as they can to elevate the way they work.

What are your final thoughts for lawyers on embracing generative AI as an integral component in the future of work?

According to a recent report from the Thomson Reuters Institute, 82 percent of legal professionals believe that generative AI could be applied to legal work. It’s safe to assume the most productive and efficient lawyers – and other professionals of the future – will be those who leverage generative AI as a tool to enable them to focus their time on what’s most important.

There will be new opportunities created by the advanced automation of tasks, and we need to train humans for these prospects. Upskilling is essential for all participants in the legal market – law firms, corporate law departments, government agencies, and courts. While these organizations need to invest in upskilling their workforces, individuals too must invest in themselves and seek out opportunities to advance their careers in the new professional landscape that generative AI will create. One thing that lawyers can do today is to start experimenting and getting familiar with large language models like ChatGPT; not with confidential client work, but with routine questions as they go about their day. This will help them start to learn the basics of crafting a good prompt. It will also help them understand the current limitations of these types of tools. It’s also important that legal organizations think about where their digital content is stored and develop a migration plan. Generative AI can unlock tremendous value if it has good content to work with. Organizations should assess their current third-party subscriptions as well as their internal content repositories and develop a plan to get all these different types of content into the applications that will see the most generative AI investment. Finally, every organization should have a checklist for vetting new generative AI solutions. The Canadian legal market is going to see a flurry of new generative AI technologies emerge, and lawyers should be prepared with evaluation criteria to make sure they fully understand issues like data residency, the depth and breadth of underlying content, model training protocols, the likelihood of hallucinations, and biases in content.

Why is Thomson Reuters well positioned to help lawyers navigate the new generative AI landscape?

Let’s discuss generative AI. What can lawyers do now to prepare for the generative AI revolution?

In Canada, we’re also working with local governments to revolutionize the way legal services are delivered. For instance, Thomson Reuters was recently awarded a contract by the government of Ontario to deliver a new digital justice platform, allowing court users to file documents quickly and easily online, digitally access court case information, pay fees, connect to virtual hearings, manage court appearances, and receive decisions electronically. We’re very proud to help Ontario transform its court system into one of the most modern and accessible justice systems in North America and facilitate access to justice for the province’s citizens. In terms of our products in Canada, we’ve been

moving more of the trusted content that legal professionals need for legal research to the Westlaw platform. For example, we have moved many of our eLoose Leaf titles to Topical Texts & Annotations collections on Westlaw. The integration with Westlaw’s robust user interface and powerful search capabilities not only enhances the research experience but also empowers users to work more efficiently and effectively. This synergy delivers immediate benefits to lawyers while also paving the way for future AI enhancements to leverage this content on Westlaw’s platform.

Let’s discuss generative AI. What can lawyers do now to prepare for the generative AI revolution?

Why is Thomson Reuters well positioned to help lawyers navigate the new generative AI landscape?

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