Tauranga-based legal software developer LawVu is one beneficiary of a Microsoft programme that is helping developers deploy generative artificial intelligence (AI).
LawVu has created a new AI Assist feature, as part of Microsoft’s AI First Movers programme, to help transform how businesses interact with contracts, driving efficiency gains and increased capabilities for in-house legal teams.
According to LawVu’s latest in-house Legal Technology Report, legal teams have access to rich data sets that contain a wealth of information about the business, but lack the resources to unlock the insights this data holds.
A key barrier to driving productivity, therefore, stems from in-house legal teams’ lack of access to the latest technology.
In that cause, Hi-Tech award finalist LawVu added new AI-powered features to its legal workspace software to optimise efficiency and remove administrative burdens by providing secure access to insights previously locked away in contracts and invoices.
AI Assist, as the feature is called, uses generative AI and language models from Microsoft Azure OpenAI to help customers action contracts faster.
The natural language processing tool reviews and summarises key information from often complex and lengthy contracts so in-house legal professionals can find answers quickly.
AI Assist can give users a high-level summary of a contract, retrieve details such as parties involved, key dates, signatories, scope, liabilities and warranties, and identify contract renewal and expiry dates in seconds.
It also allows users to evaluate the accuracy and value of the response with a “thumbs up or down” vote so the software can learn on the job.
As part of the AI First Movers programme, LawVu enjoyed early access to Microsoft’s AI technology to build new tools and deliver rapid innovation to customers.
“LawVu was already allowing in-house legal teams to manage their contracts, matters and vendor spend all in one place,” said Sam Kidd, CEO and co-founder of LawVu.
“Now, with the power of AI embedded in that workflow, we are taking a crucial next step in transforming what in-house legal teams can do and how efficiently they can do it.”
The company also developed several other features using Microsoft’s Azure form recogniser and Zuva’s DocAI.
The AI contract import and review feature lets customers import existing contracts in bulk into their LawVu environment up to four times faster.
An AI contract extraction tool also automatically captures and extracts key contract clauses and important data much faster than before. These data can be used for alerts, notifications and reporting.
The company has also developed an internal ChatGPT capability using the Azure OpenAI Service, which draws on LawVu’s database to respond to employee questions quickly, freeing them up to tackle more creative or demanding tasks.
LawVu’s software engineers are also utilising GitHub Copilot to help them write better code faster.
“LawVu is supercharging the capabilities of in-house legal teams with AI,” said Lee Hickin, chief technology officer at Microsoft A/NZ.
Source: Reseller News
