It’s time to say ‘hi’ to AI

OVER the past year, generative AI has captured the public’s imagination in a bigger way than other recent technology. And, with billions of dollars being poured into its development and take up rates growing almost exponentially, it looks set to disrupt every industry from health to financial services and from manufacturing to logistics.

So how will it impact the conveyancing industry in the coming years? And what should your business be doing to prepare for and leverage AI? We explore.

What is generative AI anyway?

Generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence that can generate new content based on the patterns it has learned from its training data. The most prominent example is Open AI’s ChatGPT. This large language model (LLM) processes text and generates responses in a way that closely mimics human cognitive processes, which means users feel like they’re having a conversation. However, there are several other LLMs, including Google’s Bard and Meta’s LaMa2, as well as other forms of generative AI, such as image generators, data synthesis and augmentation tools, and even voice clones. 

Generative AI’s ability to generate new information makes it very different from other technology, which tends to process or analyse existing data. It also makes it potentially more game changing because it has the ability to potentially create new information – including legal documents. 

Although ChatGPT 3.5 was only launched in November 2022, it has already received widespread take up. A McKinsey study found, by April 2023, as many as 79% of people working professional jobs had some exposure to it. Meanwhile, 22% confessed to using the technology in their daily work.

However, while generative AI may have taken over some of the writing and administrative tasks that professionals perform, this really is just the beginning of the revolution, says Hunter Steele, CEO of legal technology company, Smokeball. 

“We’re still in that ‘test and learn’ phase,” Steele explains. “A lot of people have already used generative AI but it’s the application to how this makes our lives better, easier or faster that everyone is scrambling to wrap their heads around right now.”

Despite this, Steele says that over the coming years, generative AI is likely to transform the way we live and work in a much more profound way. He also believes it will transform the business of conveyancing.

From ‘get and engage’ to ‘bill and collect’

In his analysis of how it will do this, Steele breaks the conveyancing process down into three stages. The first, he describes ‘get and engage’ where a practice looks to take on new clients. The next is the ‘do’ phase, where the practice carries out the conveyance and generates work. Finally, there is the ‘bill and collect’, where they invoice and get paid. 

Steele observes that, to date, most of the action around generative AI has been in the initial ‘get and engage’ phase.

“You can already use ChatGPT or other out-of-the-box LLMs to carry out a lot of lead generation and marketing tasks,” he notes. “It can write basic emails or passable marketing copy, and I’d encourage firms to experiment and use it this way.” 

Steele also observes that some professional service firms are using generative AI in the form of automated chatbots. These ‘virtual concierges’ are capable of guiding clients through a relationship by onboarding them and answering common questions.

At the other end of the spectrum – the ‘bill and collect – phase, Steele believes AI will have a more limited impact. 

“Most conveyancers collect money at settlement,” he says. “Unlike many legal practices, fees tend to be fixed rather than based on time recording. So all they need to do is collect their money at the end of the day.”

However, he notes that there is still some room for transformation and observes that accounting software programs such as Xero already make use of AI to read documents and perform other tasks.

The ‘disruptable’ middle

It’s between these two ends of the process – in the main ‘do’ part of conveyancing – that Steele sees the greatest capacity for disruption.

“Ever since the late 1990s when the conveyancing scale was taken away [in NSW], conveyancing became more competitive and efficiency became more important,” Steele notes. 

“People were prepared to pay less and, as a result, from then on conveyancers needed to be able to get results in the least time possible while still using their skill to make sure the work was done to a high standard.”

“That’s exactly what AI is built for – getting more done in less time,” he says.  

Steele believes that many of the processes in conveyancing have the potential to be handled, at least to some extent, by AI. 

“A lot of time can be spent on ordering certificates and populating documents. There’s a whole lot of rekeying of data and research, which could potentially be done much quicker by AI – for instance, by pre-populating documents and forms,” he notes.

“We believe AI could reduce the process not just by minutes but by hours – taking away thousands of clicks and steps.”

“It could also be used to look for that one interesting piece or number that doesn’t make sense. It could flag these anomalies and alert the conveyancer so they don’t have to read and understand every single document.”.