Everlaw Report: 49% of Legal Professionals Now Actively Use Generative AI

From cloud ediscovery to generative AI

The report began as the Ediscovery Cloud Adoption Report, an annual survey that tracked the long shift from on-premises ediscovery technology to the cloud. According to Everlaw, the focus has now moved to the adoption of AI across litigation and investigations, because the pace of change looks very different from the cloud era.

This edition was completed in partnership with the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS) and the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA). It draws on insights from more than 250 legal professionals and looks at how AI adoption affects workflows, business models, governance, talent development and the future of legal practice.

Everlaw says generative AI has moved from experimentation to an everyday reality of legal work in just a few years. Its companion report page notes that, in the four years since the release of ChatGPT, generative AI has reached roughly the same level of adoption as cloud-based ediscovery software.

Usage and time savings

According to the report, 49% of legal professionals actively use generative AI, an increase of 12 percentage points from last year and 15 percentage points from 2024. Nearly half of respondents believe it will soon become standard across the practice of law.

Usage is also becoming more frequent. Nearly a quarter of respondents use generative AI multiple times per day. The report page puts that figure at 21%, up 11 percentage points from last year, with a further 19% using it at least daily, up from 16%.

The share of professionals who save five to 10 hours per week through generative AI has more than doubled since last year. Everlaw says the open question is what teams do with that time, whether strategy, client service or deeper analysis.

Billing, agents and governance

Half of respondents say generative AI has already changed conventional billing practices or expect it to within the next year. The report page gives a breakdown: 19% say billing has already been significantly altered, up eight percentage points, and 31% expect significant change within a year, up 11 percentage points.

Interest is moving toward agentic AI. Nearly one-third of respondents say they are piloting multi-agent systems in which different AI agents coordinate across complex tasks, for example one doing research, another synthesizing information and another drafting an output. Forty-two percent named creating case timelines from fragmented data as one of the areas where autonomous AI agents could add the most value.

Governance has not kept pace. One-third of respondents say their organizations still have no formal policy on generative AI use. Views on disclosure to clients are split: 31% disclose generative AI use for all substantive legal work, including drafting, research and analysis, while 26% do not, with the report page noting some treat AI as an internal utility.

What it means for legal teams

The findings suggest that many organizations are still building the policies and norms needed to match how AI is already used. Everlaw also highlights a talent question: nearly one-third of respondents worry that AI could create a foundational skills gap for early-career lawyers, as the technology takes over routine work that has historically helped junior lawyers gain experience.

According to the report, knowing how to evaluate, audit and verify AI output is increasingly seen as an important professional skill. Firms, it says, will need to rethink training, mentorship and evaluation. Everlaw describes the shift to AI as a sprint compared with the long crawl to the cloud, and the full report is available for download.