Global insurance company underwrites UK LegalTech startup’s Generative AI product enabling law firms to fully embrace and rely on AI.
London, 25 June 2024 – Orbital Witness, a UK-based LegalTech startup that specialises in Generative AI-driven due diligence for real estate transactions, has announced a pioneering partnership with First Title Insurance plc, part of the First American Financial Corporation (NYSE: FAF) group, a global leader in real estate risk solutions.
This collaboration – the first of its kind anywhere in the world – will offer AI Reliance, an insurance-backed accuracy guarantee for a LegalTech AI product. This signifies a major milestone for Generative AI, allowing it to be fully embraced and relied upon in professional services such as law and conveyancing, where trust is paramount and large sums of money are at stake.
Launched in 2018, Orbital Witness builds AI-powered software that accelerates the legal due diligence and client reporting process – and reduces the risk of human error – for more than 60,000 property transactions every year, from individual home sales to multi-million pound commercial property deals. Orbital Witness is used daily by over 4,000 lawyers and property professionals, including the real estate teams at all five of the ‘Magic Circle’ law firms and the UK’s largest conveyancing and remortgage firms.
After extensive due diligence and testing over many months, First Title will underwrite Orbital Witness’ Generative AI product output, meaning that in the event of an error which results in a claim for compensation, First Title’s insurance policy would kick-in. First Title will initially underwrite AI Reliance policies for law firm customers of Orbital Witness’s residential property product, Orbital Residential, without the need for the law firm to claim on its own professional indemnity insurance.
The quality, accuracy and robustness of Orbital Witness’s AI technology, backed by First Title, will enable law firms to take full advantage of Generative AI for tasks that are typically repetitive and time-consuming, reducing human error and costs while increasing efficiencies. Under the terms of the partnership, First Title will provide a significant level of insurance cover which matches the level of professional indemnity insurance the law firms are themselves required to carry under regulation.
Against a wider backdrop of growing regulatory interest in AI, the move also sets a precedent to show how AI products that carry insurance can help firms demonstrate the standards expected by industry regulators.
Ed Boulle, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Orbital Witness comments: “Law is a highly regulated sector. Law firms are ultimately responsible for the services they provide to their clients. When adopting any new technology, firms must be able to satisfy the regulator (and their own insurers) that new technology is safe to use and won’t create additional risks to their clients. Generative AI is no different from other technologies in this respect.”
“The challenge facing most firms, however, is that they simply don’t have the necessary expertise in-house to deeply evaluate and continuously monitor Generative AI products. Insurance isn’t just about downside protection, it can also help with the burden of compliance. First Title will continue to test and monitor our Generative AI output on an ongoing basis. In this way, an Orbital Witness insurance policy will act like a kitemark denoting a level of continuous validation that no individual law firm could realistically hope to match. ”
Kevin Dick, CEO at First Title, comments: “AI is increasingly being applied to speed up and reduce the cost of real estate transactions. Law firms and conveyancing businesses need greater confidence that the AI technology they adopt is safe to use, can be relied upon and is compliant. This distinctive new partnership, where First Title and Orbital Witness worked together, has produced that essential layer of reassurance to Orbital Witness’s law firm customers. First Title’s innovative insurance policy is the first of its kind and stands to be transformational in the professional services industries, creating a benchmark for other AI providers to aspire to.”
Orbital Witness is registered to distribute insurance on behalf of First Title by the Financial Conduct Authority. Boulle concludes: “We might be the first AI provider to integrate insurance into our product, but we won’t be the last. Before long, insurance will – and indeed, should – form part of the framework within which businesses will be expected to use AI in a way that is guaranteed, financially accountable and compliant.
