The Economist GC Summit Recap: Real Impact Stories of AI on the Modern Legal Department

1. Contracts at Scale

We have all faced the impossible math of legacy contract review. Thousands of agreements, not enough time, and the fallback of “sampling.” AI changes that equation. One company analyzed more than 9,000 legacy contracts in a day. Others used AI to scan for franchise regulation compliance across 20 states.

GCs no longer need to choose between risk and resourcing. With the right tools, full visibility is within reach. 

2. Regulatory Radar

Most of us rely on traditional databases. These are valuable, but they are retrospective. AI enables real-time monitoring of new regulations and facilitates proactive compliance changes, each tailored completely to your company’s needs and concerns. 

Imagine knowing the day a state legislature introduces a bill that affects your industry. You are not waiting for an analyst’s quarterly update. That speed is more than efficient, it is strategic. It positions GCs to move from reactive compliance to proactive leadership.

3. Communications That Land

AI is also reshaping how legal teams communicate. It is an area we do not always put in the “legal ops” bucket, but it should be.

• A GC shared how AI reframed a Rule 701 disclosure email to 2,200 employees. Instead of hundreds of replies or requests for clarification, there was only one.

• Another used AI as a “red team” to stress-test activist investor messaging. They anticipated the likely counterarguments before they even reached the board.

• A weekend M&A deal in Australia closed on time with the help of an AI bot fielding questions overnight without the US-based legal team’s intervention.

As GCs, communication is part of the mandate and AI can make you far more effective at it.

4. Adoption is Cultural, Not Just Technical

The best tools don’t matter if no one uses them. Leading GCs are tackling adoption with strategies that focus on culture:

• Lean into early adopters. Reward champions with “prompt of the week” contests or hackathons. (Or build on the ones

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  already has.)

• Create healthy competition. Usage reports showing the top 2% of adopters can nudge others forward.

• Tie adoption to careers. At one firm, moving into a management role required demonstrated AI fluency.

I liked one metaphor in particular: treat AI as your “best intern.” It’s eager and fast but needs direction. Managing it well becomes a leadership skill in itself.

And skepticism melts when the results are visible. A 40+ year attorney who had dismissed AI became a believer after watching it complete, in minutes, an analysis that had always taken them days.

5. The Market Signals Are Clear

The compensation data stood out. Lawyers with AI skills are earning an average of 30% more and also reporting greater job satisfaction. The adoption curve is uneven, with IP and tech lawyers moving fastest while other practice areas lag behind.

Contract and redlining tools are already crowded, which suggests the next opportunities are in areas that remain underserved, such as regulatory monitoring, compliance, and strategic communications.

Some firms are using AI agents as stand-ins for senior counsel on routine questions. AI can handle the first tier of inquiries and it frees senior lawyers to focus on higher-stakes work.

TL;DR

The best GCs I heard from are not waiting. They are experimenting and making AI part of their leadership toolkit. They are not delegating it to innovation teams. They are owning it.

That does not mean every tool is right for every team. It does mean AI is now baseline literacy for modern legal leadership, just as email and e-discovery once were. 

The advice was simple. Start small, start practical, and start now. Pick a high-volume pain point, test AI against it, and measure the results. Share wins, learn from misses, and grow from there.