AI in the legal sector moves fast – what’s cutting-edge today is table stakes tomorrow. Ben White sat down with Ben Martin, Legal Engineer & Head of Privacy at Wordsmith AI, to make sense of where it’s all heading. Wordsmith’s reputation for staying ahead of legal AI, paired with Ben’s hands-on experience building these tools, makes him a sharp guide to what actually matters next.
In this video, he shares three things every in-house lawyer needs to know about AI right now:
Workflows are replacing single-purpose tools
The days of one tool for one job are giving way to agents that handle multiple steps in a process – and beyond that, a “legal inbox” model, where requests come in and are resolved end-to-end within a single workflow. Self-serve isn’t a separate trend, either: it’s simply a subset of workflow, the bit where the business can access legal support directly, for example an NDA generated via Slack.
Privacy and compliance are AI’s next frontier
Most of the attention on legal AI so far has gone to commercial contract negotiation. Ben argues the bigger opportunity – and the one he’s most passionate about – lies in privacy and compliance, an area he believes is still a few years behind but catching up fast.
In-house lawyers are underselling what they’ve already built
A recurring pattern: lawyers insist they haven’t started with AI, then describe agents and workflows they’ve quietly built themselves. Ben puts this down to a habit ingrained in legal training – always having the answer, never admitting uncertainty. His message: stop being self-deprecating, and own the work you’re already doing, however big or small.
With AI reshaping legal workflows this quickly, hearing from someone building the tools themselves is a rare chance to get ahead of the curve rather than catch up to it. Watch the full conversation to hear Ben’s take in his own words.
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To find out more, visit Wordsmith AI.