The legal industry is undergoing a profound transformation. Consilio’s 2026 Global Survey Report, surveying legal and risk and compliance professionals around the world, found that for the first time, understanding, selecting, and deploying new legal technologies (54%) has overtaken work volume (52%) as the top challenge for legal professionals. The report finds that AI has already become an essential part of everyday workflows.
As one survey respondent said, “Embrace the change that AI provides, but not at the expense of existing legal knowledge and skills. AI enhances our capacity; it doesn’t replace it.” To embrace AI, the industry needs to understand the opportunities and challenges that come with this technology.
The survey highlights a legal profession responding to the opportunities and challenges of AI’s rapid evolution. Adoption is accelerating, but coordination, governance, and scale are not keeping pace. The focus is shifting from adoption to orchestration, bringing together technology, data, governance, and expertise into a connected operating model.
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Work Volume is Surpassed by Deployment of Legal Technology as the Top Challenge
Legal professionals’ biggest challenge is now the adoption and integration of legal technology. Beyond managing their workload, legal teams now face the task of ensuring AI tools operate responsibly, consistently, and in alignment with organizational goals. Achieving this requires a thoughtful approach to selecting technologies that both integrate seamlessly and also address broader operational challenges.
- Legal Teams See Themselves as Strategic Partners
A dramatic shift in self-perception is evident, with 71% of in-house legal respondents now viewing themselves as strategic business partners, up from just 4% in 2024. This evolution underscores the growing expectation for legal teams to align risk management and decision-making with broader business objectives. This expanded role also demands that legal teams rethink traditional workflows and embrace strategic, business-oriented approaches. One respondent even said that law professionals should “shift perception from ‘gatekeeper’ to ‘strategic partner’ and offer practical, business-aligned solutions.” - AI Adoption Delivers Results but Lacks Governance
While 65% of respondents are redesigning how they use AI, and 58% report increased efficiency and productivity, only 7% have a documented AI governance framework. AI is advancing faster than legal teams are equipped to govern it. As tools evolve, capability is moving ahead of the structures needed to manage it safely and responsibly. AI cannot scale consistently across matters and teams without coordinated governance, and that disconnect undermines the trust and accountability that define the legal function. - Fragmented Systems and Manual Workarounds Persist
Fragmentation remains a significant barrier, with 41% of respondents citing disconnected tools as their primary systems issue when scaling AI across their environments. Additionally, 39% rely on manual workarounds, which introduce risk and limit productivity gains. A key question for legal teams is whether their technology environment delivers control or simply adds complexity. Legal teams are moving toward cohesive operating systems that connect technology, data, governance, and talent, enabling a more integrated approach to how work is executed. - Trust and Governance are Critical Constraints
Concerns over AI accuracy and trust are widespread, with 58% of respondents identifying these as the biggest blockers to broader adoption. Furthermore, 73% are worried about incorrect or hallucinated outputs, while 53% cite concerns about the loss of human judgment. These findings emphasize the importance of embedding governance and trust into AI systems to enable their responsible use at scale.
The findings from the survey point to a more deliberate approach to managing AI, grounded in the following priorities:
- Designing Integrated Operating Systems: As one survey respondent said, “Focus on technology and processes that genuinely solve problems.” Ensure that legal teams have a strategy in place to create systems that connect technology and expertise, and scale responsibly and effectively.
- Embedding Governance and Trust: As with any new technology, being deliberate about how it’s used and creating an orchestration framework that ensures accountability and transparency will build trust and governance.
- Leveraging Flexible Talent Models: Integrating flexible talent strategies can help legal teams adapt to changing demands while maximizing the value of both human and machine intelligence.
- Sustaining Innovation Through Measurement: Implementing feedback loops and metrics will allow legal teams to measure the impact of their initiatives, adapt strategies, and sustain innovation over time.
AI adoption is no longer a question of “if” but “how.” To harness the potential of AI and emerging technologies, legal teams must move beyond experimentation and into orchestration. As legal teams embrace their new role as innovation orchestrators, the challenge is clear: to lead with accountability, innovate with purpose, and build the trust that clients and businesses depend on.
