Supposedly, the phrase of the yr in know-how is “agentic.” By the top of the yr it’ll probably be “bubble,” however for now the world is supposed to tremble earlier than the superior promise of agentic. It takes AI to a complete new degree! It heralds the brand new human-free workforce! It keeps Woody Harrelson out of the rain! Because the shiny object economic system grows complacent with magic interactive chatbots, the agentic AI period to remodel these humdrum chatbots into one thing… else.
The hype machine gods should feed and are solely glad with the blood of freshly squeezed buzzwords. What does “agentic” even imply? “The time period ‘agent’ is among the most egregious acts of fraud I’ve seen in my whole profession writing about this crap, and that features the metaverse,” writes tech journalist Ed Zitron and, by some means, he is likely to be too forgiving. The agentic discuss means every little thing and nothing suddenly. That’s the facility of an empty signifier! Heap no matter imprecise hopes and goals you may into this rhetorical nugget and let it carry you to a sale and one other spherical of funding.
In concept, agentic AI represents the leap from autocomplete-on-steroids to autonomous motion — taking an understanding of the consumer’s objectives and setting out by itself to get the job completed. Imagine a cybersecurity bot surveying the evolving risk panorama and inventing its personal countermeasures as new viruses emerge all when you’re nonetheless fumbling with two-factor authentication. Different tech firms promote brokers that monitor your calendar and autonomously resolve to guide your dinner, or purchase flowers, or plot the grisly demise of your enemies.
However since attorneys entrusting this kind of autonomy to AI can be, to make use of the technical time period, “malpractice,” agentic AI doesn’t actually sing to this market. If you happen to assume hallucinated case citations are unhealthy, wait till the agent takes it upon itself to settle your consumer’s divorce for pennies on the greenback primarily based on Kirshner. Even if you happen to’re not in Kentucky.
So why would anybody hoping to promote to attorneys — which presumably describes the oldsters on the ILTACON exhibit flooring — indulge within the time period “agentic” in any respect?
For probably the most half, it’s as a result of their agentic AI isn’t actually agentic AI. At the very least not the best way anybody making an attempt to gasoline a half trillion greenback valuation would use the time period.
We first encountered this a pair months in the past after we noticed Thomson Reuters preview its “agentic” offerings. Regardless of adopting the word-of-the-moment, the Thomson Reuters product felt extra like a glorified automation product — which is sweet! Feed it case information, it does some analysis, it brainstorms some claims or defenses, does a bit of extra analysis, and spits out a draft. That’s helpful and may jumpstart a lawyer’s work, but it surely’s not a lot an autonomous agent. If one had been so inclined, they might enter “primarily based on these case information, provide you with claims, carry out related authorized analysis, and current me with a primary draft movement” right into a bot and (supplied it had a way of accessing legitimate authorized analysis aside from its personal fever goals) get the identical end result proper now.
That’s not a lot agentic because it’s a batch file.
At ILTACON, Lexis confirmed off the same function and added a bit extra to the agentic soup by explaining that they use totally different fashions for various duties, making the request extra difficult than merely asking ChatGPT a multipart immediate. Honest, however that’s nonetheless not an “agent” as a lot as professionally designed prompting.
Once I raised my irritation with the entire agentic dialog with Tiana Van Dyk, Senior Director of Shopper Providers at Epiq, she characterised (at the very least inside the authorized context) agentic as automation with prompts. “Is it that easy?” she mused. “There’s extra in there, as a result of you probably have all of the fallacious fashions tied to all of the fallacious steps, you’re gonna get a nasty end result.” From her perspective, the problem in authorized tech proper now’s demystifying these applied sciences for attorneys. “What we’re lacking within the trade, is our means to translate the academia and the advanced nature of a few of these techniques into one thing that’s accessible.”
Although with brokers the battle isn’t with the teachers as a lot because the promoting execs. They’re those pitching autonomous determination makers to the world and the authorized tech distributors have to return again and inform the attorneys, “ha ha, yeah, no, our product actually doesn’t do all that.”
It’s irritating, as a result of it feels like I’m downplaying the numerous expertise and experience that goes into making these processes work proper. Automation is tough! Ensuring the method will get it right each time takes a whole lot of strategic pondering and meticulous effort. However I hold reminding myself that it’s not my fault that this sounds dismissive, it’s the wholly pointless determination to set the bar at HAL 9000.
That’s to not say there aren’t niches inside the authorized workflow that might use real agentic AI. Cybersecurity continues to be a authorized trade concern. The billing course of is likely to be ripe for one thing at the very least nearer to agentic. Oddr doesn’t lean on the phrase agentic of their supplies — hurray! — however its end-to-end income platform that automates the agency via billing, collections, funds and forecasting is way nearer to the extent of streamlined automation via a number of totally different techniques than what many firms would plaster the phrase agent throughout. Nonetheless, it’s not “evolving” its strategy to the billing course of except it independently figures out the way to name Rocco and Vinnie to pay a go to to that one delinquent consumer.
Authorized tech distributors have a Scylla and Charybdis drawback. On one aspect, they’re tech firms who really feel compelled to go along with the tech pattern stream or appear like they’re not “leading edge” sufficient. On the opposite aspect, they cater to a authorized career that must be coaxed into tech adoption like frightened bunnies, soothed by reassurances that “this gained’t actually change the way you’ve completed this job for the final hundred years.”
The excellent news, is that attorneys can calm down. Wholesome skepticism is all the time welcome, however don’t let the “agentic” branding — and all of the tech trade baggage that comes with it — scare you off of authorized tech merchandise. The suppliers who specialize on this area didn’t all of the sudden neglect who they’re coping with. They know that corporations aren’t out there for a product that’s going to begin making an attempt to “assist” by making authorized choices by itself. Like Outdated Man Jenkins, the carnival caretaker who would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for you pesky children, if you happen to look beneath the hood of that “agentic” providing and also you’ll discover acquainted prompts driving a well-known, vetted automation.
Helpful, possibly even transformative on the margins, however not one thing making choices.
The actual hazard is that buzzwords like “agentic” — and the delirious bucket of magic beans guarantees that comes with it — will scare attorneys into lacking out on helpful instruments. Nevertheless it’s the character of this trade that we have now to consistently push again in opposition to guarantees that thrill enterprise capital whereas terrifying attorneys. By subsequent yr there will probably be some new empty signifier. Symphonic AI… turning a number of brokers into ebbing and flowing actors inside a unified, goal-oriented symphony of voices. Or some equally bullshit phrase.
That’s, except “bubble” actually does take over first.
Earlier: Dispatches From The AI Bubble: ILTACON 2025
‘Agentic’ AI Is The Hot Buzzword… But Do Lawyers Actually Want An Agent?
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Regulation and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Be at liberty to email any ideas, questions, or feedback. Observe him on Twitter or Bluesky if you happen to’re occupied with legislation, politics, and a wholesome dose of faculty sports activities information. Joe additionally serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
