Artificial intelligence has become a core component of modern legal practice, transforming everything from legal research and document drafting to eDiscovery and case preparation. As law firms and legal departments move beyond AI experimentation, the focus is shifting toward responsible implementation, governance, and managing risks such as data privacy and AI-generated inaccuracies.
The 2026 Artificial Intelligence Report, conducted by Secretariat in collaboration with ACEDS, reveals that AI adoption has reached near-universal levels across the legal industry. The report examines how legal professionals are integrating generative AI into daily workflows while balancing efficiency gains with growing concerns around confidentiality, trust, and ethical responsibility.
The latest report indicates that AI has transitioned from an emerging technology to an operational necessity for legal organizations. Rather than asking whether AI should be adopted, firms are now evaluating which AI technologies best support legal workflows and how they can be implemented responsibly.
Generative AI is increasingly being used across document drafting, legal research, document review, document summarization, web search, eDiscovery, and other core legal functions, demonstrating its growing role in improving efficiency across legal operations.
According to the study, 91% of respondents reported using generative AI over the past year, illustrating the rapid shift from pilot programs to routine adoption across legal practices.
The research also found that 64% of organizations expect to increase AI investment during the next 12 months, signaling continued confidence in AI's ability to enhance legal productivity and operational efficiency.
Despite widespread adoption, organizations continue to face significant implementation challenges.
Data privacy and confidentiality remain the primary concern, cited by 57% of respondents, while concerns surrounding AI hallucinations have risen sharply to 46%, making them the second-largest barrier to adoption ahead of implementation costs.
The findings suggest that as legal professionals increasingly rely on AI-generated outputs, organizations are placing greater emphasis on validating information, protecting sensitive data, and maintaining defensible legal processes.
Secretariat Managing Director Richard Finkelman said:
"We are seeing a clear acceleration in the adoption of commercial GenAI tools within traditional eDiscovery workflows, with these technologies now being actively used across core discovery processes. At the same time, recent cases are bringing the risks into sharper focus, particularly around hallucinations and data privacy. Expert discovery is now the next frontier, and while adoption today remains nascent, we expect it to shift rapidly toward more mainstream use over the next 12 months."
Maribel Rivera, VP of Strategy and Client Engagement at ACEDS, said:
"AI has moved from a future-facing conversation to a day-to-day reality for legal teams. What our legal community wants now is not hype, but practical guidance: which tools are being used, where they fit into workflows, and how to adopt them responsibly without compromising confidentiality, accuracy, or defensibility. This report makes clear that education and governance have to keep pace with adoption. As GenAI becomes part of document drafting, review, research, and emerging expert discovery workflows, legal professionals need the skills to ask better questions, validate outputs, and keep human oversight at the center of every process."
The report concludes that while AI continues to deliver measurable improvements in efficiency and productivity, organizations must invest equally in governance, employee education, and oversight to ensure AI-generated work remains accurate, compliant, and professionally defensible.
As AI adoption expands across legal operations, responsible implementation and continuous human review are expected to play a defining role in the next phase of legal technology transformation.
About Secretariat — Secretariat is a global disputes and forensic advisory firm trusted in critical legal, risk, and regulatory matters around the world. With more than 700 in the world’s key financial and arbitration centers, we have diverse expertise helping clients navigate high-stakes, complex business and legal challenges, including disputes; delay and quantum analysis; international arbitration and litigation; economic damages; engineering; valuations; forensic accounting; government contracting; investigations; and economic analysis, analytics, and strategy. Learn more about our people and capabilities at https://secretariat-intl.com/.
About ACEDS — The Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS), part of leading legal education provider BARBRI Global, is the world’s leading organization for training and certification in e-discovery, information governance, and related disciplines. ACEDS provides training to corporate legal departments, law firms, the government, service providers, and institutions of higher learning. Our flagship CEDS certification is recognized worldwide and used to verify skills and competence in electronic discovery for organizations and individuals through training, certification, and continuing education. The CEDS credential is held by practitioners at the largest Fortune 500 companies, Am Law 200 firms and government agencies. ACEDS has 30 chapters in most major US cities, Canada, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Australia. Our goal is to help professionals and organizations reduce the costs and risks associated with e-discovery while helping to improve and verify their skills and advance their careers and overall technology competence in e-discovery and related fields. Learn more at www.aceds.org.
About BARBRI — BARBRI is the global leader in technology-enabled legal education with leadership positions in the US and the UK. Dedicated to providing unparalleled innovation and excellence in legal education, BARBRI delivers outstanding success to learners by providing the most trusted and industry leading products under one unified experience and across every step of the legal learner’s path. Building on the success of its core bar courses, which have helped more than 1.5 million lawyers around the world pass a U.S. bar exam, BARBRI offers a comprehensive suite of learning solutions for higher education institutions and law-related businesses empowering every step of legal learning journey. Founded in 1967, BARBRI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with offices throughout the United States and around the world.
