{"success":true,"data":{"pressRelease":{"id":"150919","rtpr_id":"nBw2hR2QTa-20260923","ticker":"LAW","exchange":"NYSE","all_tickers":["LAW"],"title":"Legal AI’s Next Challenge Isn’t Accuracy. It’s the Bill.","author":"Business Wire","published_at":"2026-09-23T12:46:00.098Z","article_body":"Legal AI’s Next Challenge Isn’t Accuracy. It’s the Bill.\n\nAnnual DISCO Legal AI survey finds legal AI adoption up sharply on every\nmeasure — and an industry that spent last year forecasting savings now\nunable to forecast costs\n\nDISCO\n(https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.csdisco.com&esheet=54609038&newsitemid=20260923427226&lan=en-US&anchor=DISCO&index=1&md5=846743914459d976e07707e5592c2c2c)\n(NYSE: LAW), a creator of industry-leading litigation technology, today\nannounced the findings of its annual study of legal AI trends in law firms and\ncorporate legal departments, conducted by Ari Kaplan Advisors. The research\nfinds that legal teams have largely settled the question of AI’s\ncapabilities and have moved on to a harder one: what it costs, and whether\nanyone can predict that number in advance.\n\nIn DISCO’s 2025 study\n(https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcsdisco.app.box.com%2Fv%2FLegal-AI-White-Paper&esheet=54609038&newsitemid=20260923427226&lan=en-US&anchor=2025+study&index=2&md5=c190ee290062981cfd035b12b2f72eee)\n, cost savings were a headline expectation, with 32% of participants reporting\nthey were already realizing savings from AI and 55% expecting them. In the\n2026 research, participants raised a different subject without being asked:\nthe shift in legal AI pricing away from annual subscriptions toward\nconsumption-based token and credit models, and the difficulty of budgeting\nagainst it. “The token/credit costs seem to be changing as the definition of\na task evolves; there seems to be a lack of visibility into what constitutes a\ntask and how credit usage is calculated,” said one law firm participant.\n\nLegal departments described building operational machinery around the problem\nin an effort to increase cost certainty. One reported billing token costs back\nto individual business units. Another is assigning each lawyer a personal\ntoken allocation, and was candid about the risk, noting that “this could\nresult in much higher long-term costs since most people do not monitor their\nusage.” A law firm participant framed it as a planning problem: “budgeting\nwill become an even bigger challenge because it will be harder to identify\nwhat a tool should be used for, how much it costs, and the best way to budget\nfor it.”\n\n“The Legal industry has resolved the AI capability question much faster than\nit has resolved the economics question. Legal teams have a greater\nunderstanding of what AI can do but very little visibility into what it will\ncost them to do it. Pricing transparency has become a bigger constraint on\nadoption than output, and both law firms and corporations are increasingly\ndemanding better line of sight to both return on investment and the bottom\nline,” said DISCO’s Director of AI Consulting, James Park.\n\nDownload the full survey results and white paper here\n(https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcsdisco.app.box.com%2Fv%2F2026-Legal-AI-Report&esheet=54609038&newsitemid=20260923427226&lan=en-US&anchor=full+survey+results+and+white+paper+here&index=3&md5=d4b398aaeb90a9868dae35a482f0de54)\n.\n\nOther important trends the survey identified include:\n\nClients are moving faster than their outside counsel\n\nThe pressure to adopt is increasingly coming from the top of the client\norganization. Pressure from the board or C-suite rose from 18% to 47% of\ncorporate legal respondents in a single year, the largest single-year shift in\nthe research, while pressure from the highest levels of company leadership\nrose from 64% to 76%. Law firms feel it downstream, with the share adopting\nlegal AI specifically to meet rising client demand rising from 39% to 64%.\n\nSeveral in-house participants described the relationship shifting beneath\ntheir outside counsel. “We are seeing the role of outside counsel changing\nfrom an originator of work to a validator,” said one in-house lawyer.\n\nAgentic AI has arrived — but almost no one thinks it is the endgame\n\nAgents have moved from the margins into production. Sixty-two percent of\nparticipants report using AI agents for work including horizon scanning across\njurisdictions, weekly legal hold reporting, data extraction, fact chronologies\nand document review.\n\nOnly 10%, however, believe legal AI is becoming exclusively agentic, and the\nreservation is about control rather than capability. “I hope legal use does\nnot become exclusively agentic AI because that would mean we would lose\ncontrol,” said one law firm leader.\n\nAI Review has passed its tipping point\n\nConfidence in AI for document review has passed a threshold. Seventy-two\npercent of respondents rate themselves as somewhat or very confident using\nlegal AI for document review compared with conventional manual review, up from\n53% a year ago. Fifty-eight percent have integrated legal AI into routine\nlegal processes, up from 35%, and 94% work in organizations with a formal AI\npolicy, up from 80%. “I test it regularly and have verified it against\nmanaged review onshore and offshore; it has worked so well that I would never\ngo back to a manual review for first- or second-pass review,” said one\nparticipant.\n\nThe research also found discovery workloads rising for 53% of respondents, up\nfrom 47%, while the share reporting that complex litigation is taking longer\nfell from 39% to 34%. Several participants attributed rising volume to AI\nlowering the barrier to filing rather than to AI slowing matters down. “Due\nto AI, the bar for entering litigation from a demand letter to pleadings is\nmuch lower because anyone can engage in that process with AI’s help,” said\none respondent.\n\n“The market is moving so quickly, and I hope this research helps legal teams\nin law firms and law departments benchmark their performance to drive their\norganizations forward,” said Ari Kaplan, a legal industry analyst and the\nPrincipal of Ari Kaplan Advisors. “Leaders are now balancing the promise of\nlegal AI with the practical realities of embedding it into the fabric of their\noperations.”\n\nAdditional findings from the 2026 Legal AI Survey:\n\n * Pressure to adopt is now top-down on both sides. Seventy-six percent of\ncorporate legal respondents report pressure from the highest levels of\nleadership, 55% from within the legal department and 27% from business units;\n47% cite the board or C-suite. Sixty percent of law firm respondents report\npressure from leadership and clients, 38% from partners and 26% from\nassociates.\n * Efficiency dominates the rationale. Ninety-one percent of firm respondents and\n92% of in-house respondents name efficiency as the primary driver. Sixty-four\npercent of firms are responding to rising client demand.\n * Discovery volume is rising while case duration is not. Fifty-three percent\nreport an increased discovery workload and 31% report it unchanged; one\nrespondent reported a decrease. Thirty-four percent say complex litigation is\ntaking longer, and of those, 63% are investing in legal AI to offset it.\nSeveral participants attributed rising volume to AI lowering the barrier to\nfiling.\n * In-house teams are reclaiming work. Participants described using agents and\ngenerative AI to keep matters in-house, including one who reported saving\nroughly $10,000 in outside counsel fees per M&A transaction by generating\nboard resolutions from an internal archive.\n * Adoption is uneven. As one legal operations leader put it: “It's a journey,\nand we are at the end of the beginning.” A law firm leader offered that\nlegal AI is “not ubiquitous like email yet, though it is headed in that\ndirection.”\nMethodology\n\nIn the summer of 2026, Ari Kaplan Advisors conducted an online survey\ncompleted by 104 individuals, supplemented by 33 in-depth interviews.\nFifty-three respondents (51%) work in law firms and 51 (49%) in corporate\nlegal departments. Sixty-eight percent work in organizations with more than\n1,000 employees, and 91% of law firm participants handle commercial\nlitigation, among other practice areas. Findings reported separately for law\nfirms or corporate legal departments are based on approximately 51 to 53\nresponses. The prior-year study, conducted from August 8 through September 29,\n2025, surveyed 112 individuals and interviewed 32 leaders, divided evenly\nbetween law firms and corporate legal departments.\n\nAbout DISCO\n\nDISCO (NYSE: LAW) provides comprehensive, innovative solutions for modern\nlitigation. We create and service an intuitive, cloud-native platform at the\nforefront of litigation technology, backed by the partnership of expert\nprofessional services and support. Leveraging the latest in AI to help law\nfirms and corporations achieve smarter outcomes faster, our scalable products\nand tools allow customers to simplify everyday tasks and tackle complex\nmatters at every stage of litigation. Learn more at www.csdisco.com\n(https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.csdisco.com&esheet=54609038&newsitemid=20260923427226&lan=en-US&anchor=www.csdisco.com&index=4&md5=8dc91cb5bc1dc0464d04669925e388fe)\n.\n\n\n\nView source version on businesswire.com:\nhttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260923427226/en/\n(https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260923427226/en/)\n\nPress: media@csdisco.com (mailto:media@csdisco.com)\n\n\nCopyright Business Wire 2026","article_body_html":"","raw_payload":{"data":{"id":"nBw2hR2QTa-20260923","title":"Legal AI’s Next Challenge Isn’t Accuracy. It’s the Bill.","author":"Business Wire","ticker":"LAW","created":"2026-09-23T12:46:00.098Z","tickers":["LAW"],"exchange":"NYSE","article_body":"Legal AI’s Next Challenge Isn’t Accuracy. It’s the Bill.\n\nAnnual DISCO Legal AI survey finds legal AI adoption up sharply on every\nmeasure — and an industry that spent last year forecasting savings now\nunable to forecast costs\n\nDISCO\n(https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.csdisco.com&esheet=54609038&newsitemid=20260923427226&lan=en-US&anchor=DISCO&index=1&md5=846743914459d976e07707e5592c2c2c)\n(NYSE: LAW), a creator of industry-leading litigation technology, today\nannounced the findings of its annual study of legal AI trends in law firms and\ncorporate legal departments, conducted by Ari Kaplan Advisors. The research\nfinds that legal teams have largely settled the question of AI’s\ncapabilities and have moved on to a harder one: what it costs, and whether\nanyone can predict that number in advance.\n\nIn DISCO’s 2025 study\n(https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcsdisco.app.box.com%2Fv%2FLegal-AI-White-Paper&esheet=54609038&newsitemid=20260923427226&lan=en-US&anchor=2025+study&index=2&md5=c190ee290062981cfd035b12b2f72eee)\n, cost savings were a headline expectation, with 32% of participants reporting\nthey were already realizing savings from AI and 55% expecting them. In the\n2026 research, participants raised a different subject without being asked:\nthe shift in legal AI pricing away from annual subscriptions toward\nconsumption-based token and credit models, and the difficulty of budgeting\nagainst it. “The token/credit costs seem to be changing as the definition of\na task evolves; there seems to be a lack of visibility into what constitutes a\ntask and how credit usage is calculated,” said one law firm participant.\n\nLegal departments described building operational machinery around the problem\nin an effort to increase cost certainty. One reported billing token costs back\nto individual business units. Another is assigning each lawyer a personal\ntoken allocation, and was candid about the risk, noting that “this could\nresult in much higher long-term costs since most people do not monitor their\nusage.” A law firm participant framed it as a planning problem: “budgeting\nwill become an even bigger challenge because it will be harder to identify\nwhat a tool should be used for, how much it costs, and the best way to budget\nfor it.”\n\n“The Legal industry has resolved the AI capability question much faster than\nit has resolved the economics question. Legal teams have a greater\nunderstanding of what AI can do but very little visibility into what it will\ncost them to do it. Pricing transparency has become a bigger constraint on\nadoption than output, and both law firms and corporations are increasingly\ndemanding better line of sight to both return on investment and the bottom\nline,” said DISCO’s Director of AI Consulting, James Park.\n\nDownload the full survey results and white paper here\n(https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcsdisco.app.box.com%2Fv%2F2026-Legal-AI-Report&esheet=54609038&newsitemid=20260923427226&lan=en-US&anchor=full+survey+results+and+white+paper+here&index=3&md5=d4b398aaeb90a9868dae35a482f0de54)\n.\n\nOther important trends the survey identified include:\n\nClients are moving faster than their outside counsel\n\nThe pressure to adopt is increasingly coming from the top of the client\norganization. Pressure from the board or C-suite rose from 18% to 47% of\ncorporate legal respondents in a single year, the largest single-year shift in\nthe research, while pressure from the highest levels of company leadership\nrose from 64% to 76%. Law firms feel it downstream, with the share adopting\nlegal AI specifically to meet rising client demand rising from 39% to 64%.\n\nSeveral in-house participants described the relationship shifting beneath\ntheir outside counsel. “We are seeing the role of outside counsel changing\nfrom an originator of work to a validator,” said one in-house lawyer.\n\nAgentic AI has arrived — but almost no one thinks it is the endgame\n\nAgents have moved from the margins into production. Sixty-two percent of\nparticipants report using AI agents for work including horizon scanning across\njurisdictions, weekly legal hold reporting, data extraction, fact chronologies\nand document review.\n\nOnly 10%, however, believe legal AI is becoming exclusively agentic, and the\nreservation is about control rather than capability. “I hope legal use does\nnot become exclusively agentic AI because that would mean we would lose\ncontrol,” said one law firm leader.\n\nAI Review has passed its tipping point\n\nConfidence in AI for document review has passed a threshold. Seventy-two\npercent of respondents rate themselves as somewhat or very confident using\nlegal AI for document review compared with conventional manual review, up from\n53% a year ago. Fifty-eight percent have integrated legal AI into routine\nlegal processes, up from 35%, and 94% work in organizations with a formal AI\npolicy, up from 80%. “I test it regularly and have verified it against\nmanaged review onshore and offshore; it has worked so well that I would never\ngo back to a manual review for first- or second-pass review,” said one\nparticipant.\n\nThe research also found discovery workloads rising for 53% of respondents, up\nfrom 47%, while the share reporting that complex litigation is taking longer\nfell from 39% to 34%. Several participants attributed rising volume to AI\nlowering the barrier to filing rather than to AI slowing matters down. “Due\nto AI, the bar for entering litigation from a demand letter to pleadings is\nmuch lower because anyone can engage in that process with AI’s help,” said\none respondent.\n\n“The market is moving so quickly, and I hope this research helps legal teams\nin law firms and law departments benchmark their performance to drive their\norganizations forward,” said Ari Kaplan, a legal industry analyst and the\nPrincipal of Ari Kaplan Advisors. “Leaders are now balancing the promise of\nlegal AI with the practical realities of embedding it into the fabric of their\noperations.”\n\nAdditional findings from the 2026 Legal AI Survey:\n\n * Pressure to adopt is now top-down on both sides. Seventy-six percent of\ncorporate legal respondents report pressure from the highest levels of\nleadership, 55% from within the legal department and 27% from business units;\n47% cite the board or C-suite. Sixty percent of law firm respondents report\npressure from leadership and clients, 38% from partners and 26% from\nassociates.\n * Efficiency dominates the rationale. Ninety-one percent of firm respondents and\n92% of in-house respondents name efficiency as the primary driver. Sixty-four\npercent of firms are responding to rising client demand.\n * Discovery volume is rising while case duration is not. Fifty-three percent\nreport an increased discovery workload and 31% report it unchanged; one\nrespondent reported a decrease. Thirty-four percent say complex litigation is\ntaking longer, and of those, 63% are investing in legal AI to offset it.\nSeveral participants attributed rising volume to AI lowering the barrier to\nfiling.\n * In-house teams are reclaiming work. Participants described using agents and\ngenerative AI to keep matters in-house, including one who reported saving\nroughly $10,000 in outside counsel fees per M&A transaction by generating\nboard resolutions from an internal archive.\n * Adoption is uneven. As one legal operations leader put it: “It's a journey,\nand we are at the end of the beginning.” A law firm leader offered that\nlegal AI is “not ubiquitous like email yet, though it is headed in that\ndirection.”\nMethodology\n\nIn the summer of 2026, Ari Kaplan Advisors conducted an online survey\ncompleted by 104 individuals, supplemented by 33 in-depth interviews.\nFifty-three respondents (51%) work in law firms and 51 (49%) in corporate\nlegal departments. Sixty-eight percent work in organizations with more than\n1,000 employees, and 91% of law firm participants handle commercial\nlitigation, among other practice areas. Findings reported separately for law\nfirms or corporate legal departments are based on approximately 51 to 53\nresponses. The prior-year study, conducted from August 8 through September 29,\n2025, surveyed 112 individuals and interviewed 32 leaders, divided evenly\nbetween law firms and corporate legal departments.\n\nAbout DISCO\n\nDISCO (NYSE: LAW) provides comprehensive, innovative solutions for modern\nlitigation. We create and service an intuitive, cloud-native platform at the\nforefront of litigation technology, backed by the partnership of expert\nprofessional services and support. Leveraging the latest in AI to help law\nfirms and corporations achieve smarter outcomes faster, our scalable products\nand tools allow customers to simplify everyday tasks and tackle complex\nmatters at every stage of litigation. Learn more at www.csdisco.com\n(https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.csdisco.com&esheet=54609038&newsitemid=20260923427226&lan=en-US&anchor=www.csdisco.com&index=4&md5=8dc91cb5bc1dc0464d04669925e388fe)\n.\n\n\n\nView source version on businesswire.com:\nhttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260923427226/en/\n(https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260923427226/en/)\n\nPress: media@csdisco.com (mailto:media@csdisco.com)\n\n\nCopyright Business Wire 2026"},"type":"article","timestamp":"2026-09-23T12:46:00.136701799Z","server_sent_at_ms":1790167560136},"received_at":"2026-09-23T12:46:00.190Z","source_url":"https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260923427226/en/"},"analysis":{"id":"139721","press_release_id":"150919","analysis_json":{"industry":{"label":"Software","sector":"Information Technology"},"redFlags":["Survey highlights customer frustration with consumption-based token/credit pricing and lack of cost predictability — a potential headwind or reputational risk for DISCO's pricing model"],"eventType":"operations_update","narrative":"DISCO released its 2026 Legal AI survey, conducted by Ari Kaplan Advisors with 104 survey respondents and 33 interviews, showing legal AI adoption up sharply across every measure.\n\nKey findings: 62% of participants now use AI agents in production, confidence in AI document review rose to 72% from 53%, and board/C-suite pressure to adopt jumped from 18% to 47% among corporate legal respondents.\n\nThe survey flags cost unpredictability as the industry's next constraint, with pricing shifting from annual subscriptions to consumption-based token and credit models that are hard to budget against — a dynamic relevant to DISCO's own pricing strategy.","sentiment":"bullish","agentHooks":{"shouldPost":false,"suggestedAngle":"DISCO survey shows legal AI adoption tipping point while cost predictability emerges as the adoption bottleneck."},"keyFigures":{"customDimensions":{"interviews_2026":33,"ai_agents_usage_pct":"62%","survey_respondents_2026":104,"doc_review_confidence_pct":"72%","board_csuite_pressure_pct_change":"18% to 47%","firm_ai_adoption_for_client_demand_pct_change":"39% to 64%"}},"quotedText":"Pricing transparency has become a bigger constraint on adoption than output","namedEntities":{"people":[{"name":"James Park","role":"DISCO Director of AI Consulting"},{"name":"Ari Kaplan","role":"Principal, Ari Kaplan Advisors"}],"products":["DISCO legal AI platform","AI Review"],"companies":[{"name":"DISCO","ticker":"LAW","relationship":"filer/survey sponsor"},{"name":"Ari Kaplan Advisors","relationship":"research partner"}],"dollarAmounts":[{"amount":"$10,000","context":"outside counsel fees saved per M&A transaction by one in-house participant"}]},"materialImpact":{"score":2,"reasoning":"Issuer-authored annual survey report, not financial disclosure. It reinforces DISCO's brand leadership and highlights adoption tailwinds and pricing-transparency concerns, but contains no revenue, guidance, or direct P&L impact."},"tickerRelevance":{"others":[],"primary":"LAW"},"globalImportance":20,"audienceRelevance":15,"eventTypeSecondary":["product_launch"],"importanceComponents":{"tickerTier":"small-cap","eventGravity":"annual industry survey / thought leadership","issuerAuthored":true,"financialMateriality":"none disclosed"}},"event_type":"operations_update","event_type_secondary":["product_launch"],"sentiment":"bullish","material_impact_score":2,"narrative":"DISCO released its 2026 Legal AI survey, conducted by Ari Kaplan Advisors with 104 survey respondents and 33 interviews, showing legal AI adoption up sharply across every measure.\n\nKey findings: 62% of participants now use AI agents in production, confidence in AI document review rose to 72% from 53%, and board/C-suite pressure to adopt jumped from 18% to 47% among corporate legal respondents.\n\nThe survey flags cost unpredictability as the industry's next constraint, with pricing shifting from annual subscriptions to consumption-based token and credit models that are hard to budget against — a dynamic relevant to DISCO's own pricing strategy.","key_figures":{"customDimensions":{"interviews_2026":33,"ai_agents_usage_pct":"62%","survey_respondents_2026":104,"doc_review_confidence_pct":"72%","board_csuite_pressure_pct_change":"18% to 47%","firm_ai_adoption_for_client_demand_pct_change":"39% to 64%"}},"named_entities":{"people":[{"name":"James Park","role":"DISCO Director of AI Consulting"},{"name":"Ari Kaplan","role":"Principal, Ari Kaplan Advisors"}],"products":["DISCO legal AI platform","AI Review"],"companies":[{"name":"DISCO","ticker":"LAW","relationship":"filer/survey sponsor"},{"name":"Ari Kaplan Advisors","relationship":"research partner"}],"dollarAmounts":[{"amount":"$10,000","context":"outside counsel fees saved per M&A transaction by one in-house participant"}]},"model_name":"glm-5.3-flashx","prompt_hash":"sha256:727b4b9429a443af","schema_hash":"sha256:05005c02d9cffac9","created_at":"2026-09-23T12:46:06.232Z","global_importance":20,"audience_relevance":15,"importance_components":{"tickerTier":"small-cap","eventGravity":"annual industry survey / thought leadership","issuerAuthored":true,"financialMateriality":"none disclosed"}},"durationMs":6030,"modelName":"glm-5.3-flashx"}}