In October last year Evisort launched its self-populating dashboard AI capability and stated that there was ‘no lawyer in the loop’ to achieve results, i.e. docs could be loaded up without any user training or oversight, and you’d get super-accurate and useable outputs. Understandably there was some scepticism.
So, Artificial Lawyer decided to have another look and conduct a ‘random test’ on the system to see what happened.
But, first some context. Evisort is a CLM company, and as with many others offers the ability for inhouse teams to upload documents to its NLP analysis system, which then extracts key data; from names and dates, to more complex information about key clauses.
So far, so good and nothing apparently controversial there. However, what some felt was a big claim was that it needed zero input from the client. There was no ‘AI hand-holding’ or supervision. This was ‘just upload and wait for the results’.
For example, Jerry Ting, CEO, last year told this site: ‘Evisort’s artificial intelligence quickly and accurately turns contracts into searchable data and tracks key info, dates, and clauses without manual data entry.’
So, to the experiment.
With the help of Memme Onwudiwe, EVP Legal & Business Intelligence, Evisort, we picked a lengthy document at random from an open-source contract database and put it to the test. I.e. this was not a pre-arranged marketing presentation, this was more of an ‘on the spot’ experience.
In this case, it was an MSA (Master Service Agreement), and it was uploaded without any preparation on Onwudiwe’s part. We had also done a couple of other tests on other documents, but the video is on just this MSA as it’s about 10 mins and allows you to see in detail what is happening – and so you can then make a judgment yourself.
Now, was this an exhaustive test under scientific laboratory conditions? Nope. But, from where AL was sitting and looking directly at the results in real-time as they came in, it did indeed appear that their system performed as they said it would.
Last word – being sceptical makes total sense and it’s a very healthy default position to maintain when it comes to technology. Also, as with any legal tech investment, you’re really going to need to test this yourself and use your own yardsticks before making any kind of decision. But, hopefully this short video provides an additional piece of information.