In 2025, legal teams are no longer debating the role of artificial intelligence (AI). They’re deploying AI legal tools across their functions to streamline workflows, reduce risk, and shift time back to high-value strategic work.
This isn’t about replacing lawyers. It’s about removing the friction and inefficiencies that slow them down — through targeted, practical applications of legal AI software.
Below are ten areas where AI is already reshaping in-house legal operations, along with real-world results and the tools delivering them.
Contract work is time-intensive, high-volume, and critical to business velocity. AI tools now help legal teams speed up drafting, identify risk, and improve compliance across every stage of the contract lifecycle.
Drafting automation and clause suggestion
Clause comparison and deviation detection
Contract summarisation for internal use
Obligation tracking post-signature
Noumi reduced average execution time to four hours and completed NDAs in just 1.5 hours using Plexus, freeing legal to focus on strategic matters.
“ We’ve automated the contract admin we used to drown in — now our legal team is focused where it matters.” — General Counsel, NoumiTools to consider:
Plexus – End-to-end contract automation, ideal for lean in-house legal functions
Luminance – Best for clause anomaly detection and bulk analysis across document portfolios
Legal research is essential — but often a drain on time. With AI-powered legal research tools, teams now get to the point faster, with more confidence in their findings.
Natural language search
Summarisation of long-form legal documents
Highlighting actionable insights for different audiences
Legal professionals report completing research tasks up to 40% faster, freeing up time to focus on interpretation and risk assessment — not document scanning.
While not every legal team needs deep research automation, AI summaries alone can dramatically improve turnaround and clarity for internal clients.
With regulations changing constantly, AI compliance tools allow legal teams to track obligations, spot risk, and stay audit-ready — without falling behind.
Monitoring jurisdictional legal changes
Extracting compliance terms from contracts
Flagging risk based on language patterns
Plexus – Offers clause-level compliance tagging, renewal reminders, and built-in audit trails
Neota Logic – Well-suited to complex rule-based compliance environments (e.g., finance, health, utilities)
Matter management remains a challenge for many in-house teams. AI legal operations platforms help legal teams take control of incoming requests, route work efficiently, and reduce manual overhead.
Smart intake forms
AI-generated clarification questions
Automated task assignment and routing
Powerco, New Zealand’s second-largest utility provider, used Plexus to overhaul its legal operations. Admin time dropped dramatically — what once took hours now takes just 30 minutes a week.
That kind of operational leverage is exactly what overworked legal teams need in today’s high-growth, high-compliance environments.
Routine questions take up legal’s time — and slow down the business. AI-powered chatbots and self-service platforms let teams answer common questions quickly, while keeping legal in control.
Legal FAQs and chatbot responses
Searchable legal policy or template libraries
AI review of marketing content for compliance
L’Oréal ANZ cut marketing legal review time by 80% using Plexus Marketing Suite, responding in hours instead of days.
Plexus Marketing Wizard – Built specifically for marketing compliance and promotional review
Josef – A versatile no-code platform to create legal bots for intake, triage, or guidance
“We’ve cut review time by 80% and still maintained full legal oversight. It’s a win-win.” — Legal Counsel, L’Oréal ANZ
Plexus Marketing Wizard – Built specifically for marketing compliance and promotional review
Josef – A versatile no-code platform to create legal bots for intake, triage, or guidance
Generating legal documents doesn’t need to be time-consuming or fully owned by legal teams. With AI-powered document automation tools, legal can delegate safely — enabling business users to create standardised, policy-aligned contracts with confidence.
Self-service generation of NDAs, MSAs, SoWs, and other templates
Clause selection based on risk profile or contract type
Built-in logic for approvals and escalations when terms deviate from standard
Legal teams using document automation tools see reduced intake volume and faster turnaround — often 50 – 70% less legal time spent on routine documents.
Noumi, for example, leverages Plexus to allow business users to self-serve NDAs and short-form contracts — cutting delays and keeping Legal focused on higher-risk work.
Plexus – Document automation tailored to legal’s rules and workflows
DocuSign CLM – Focused on contract template automation with approvals
Contractbook – Template-driven document generation with business-friendly UI
AI legal assistants are becoming a critical part of the modern legal tech stack. Whether drafting emails, summarising documents, or flagging risks in contracts, these assistants augment lawyer productivity with fast, contextual support.
Drafting internal memos, advice, or responses to business stakeholders
Suggesting clause-level changes based on historical preferences
Reviewing and redlining contracts using trained legal models
Harvey – AI assistant for legal research, drafting, and contract analysis
CoCounsel (Casetext) – AI-trained on legal use cases including redlining
Plexus, Josef – Offer embedded assistants to accelerate internal legal service delivery
As legal data is highly sensitive, data security is a top priority when adopting AI legal tools. The best platforms combine intelligent automation with rigorous security and compliance controls.
AI models that are secure, explainable, and non-retentive
Role-based permissions that protect access to sensitive contracts
Localised data storage and strong encryption standards
Audit logs for all user and system activity
Legal teams evaluating AI tools increasingly demand ISO 27001 certification, Australian data hosting, and zero data reuse by LLM providers.
Plexus, for example, hosts client data in Australia, applies enterprise-grade encryption, and provides detailed audit trails for all activity — keeping legal and IT stakeholders aligned.
Plexus – ISO 27001 certified with Australian-based data centres
Ironclad – Offers SOC 2 compliance and custom role controls
Josef – Flexible platform with granular user access and private deployment options
The strongest legal AI platforms don’t just automate — they deliver measurable business value. Teams that succeed with AI are the ones that track impact from day one.
Reduction in contract turnaround time
Decrease in legal request backlogs or volume per FTE
Time saved on research, intake, or compliance tasks
Stakeholder satisfaction and response time SLAs
Looking ahead, we’ll see continued expansion in:
Industry-specific legal AI tools (e.g., for healthcare, financial services)
Predictive legal analytics to flag litigation or regulatory risk early
Integrated AI ecosystems where matter intake, contract management, and compliance monitoring all talk to each other
In 2025, top-performing legal departments aren’t dabbling in AI — they’re deploying legal AI software with measurable business impact. Whether it’s automating contracts, managing compliance risk, or scaling service delivery with legal chatbots, the right tools are proving their value every day.
If you’re stuck in contracting backlog, buried in compliance admin, or struggling to triage growing volumes of legal work, now’s the time to rethink your legal tech stack.
And in areas like AI contract management, legal matter automation, marketing compliance tools, and legal self-service, Plexus is leading the way.