PwC’s 4,000 legal staffers get AI assistant as law chatbots gain steam

PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS (PwC) said on Wednesday (Mar 15) that it will give 4,000 of its legal professionals access to an artificial intelligence (AI) platform, becoming the latest firm to introduce generative AI technology for legal work.

PwC said it partnered with AI startup Harvey for an initial 12-month contract, which the accounting and consulting firm said will help lawyers with contract analysis, regulatory compliance work, due diligence and other legal advisory and consulting services.

PwC said it will also determine ways for tax professionals to use the technology.

It said its access to Harvey’s technology is exclusive among the Big Four professional services firms.

Harvey is built on technology from OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed startup that on Tuesday released an upgraded version of its AI sensation ChatGPT. Harvey received a US$5 million investment last year in a funding round led by the OpenAI Startup Fund.

PwC said AI will not provide legal advice to its clients and “will not replace lawyers”.

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A PwC spokesperson said the company will use its own internal data and over time may use anonymised data from clients that want PwC to use their information for certain uses. It will also work to make its own AI models with Harvey’s platform to create custom products and services, it said.

Other companies, law firms and professional services firms have also started to experiment with generative AI technology.

Global law firm Allen & Overy last month became the first major legal business to publicly partner with Harvey. The large London-founded firm said more than 3,500 of its lawyers will use the service to automate some legal document drafting and research.

Other legal technology companies are rushing to incorporate generative AI capabilities into products. Robin AI, a London-founded company that focuses on contracts, last month said it integrated technology into its platform from OpenAI competitor Anthropic.

Casetext, a legal research company, said on Tuesday its recently-released AI legal assistant product is also built on OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-4. REUTERS