In what appears to be a world first, legal tech and proptech company Orbital Witness will offer an insurance policy on the accuracy of its generative AI outputs. First Title will be the insurer and clients will simply pay an additional fee to the tech company to gain this extra level of coverage.
While the idea of using insurance to handle legal AI outputs has been explored in the past, as far as Artificial Lawyer knows this is the first time a legal tech company has actually offered customers a specific policy guaranteeing them that if its genAI solution gets something wrong, and hence leads to issues for them, they can seek redress via specially designed insurance coverage, which is sold as part of the licence agreement with Orbital Witness.
In this case, the genAI insurance will be offered in conjunction with its residential property product, which helps lawyers with the documentation in real estate transactions such as finding key information in property deeds, comparing information in reports, and flagging any issues. To do this it leverages genAI.
Depending on how this goes they will look to extend the genAI insurance coverage into other products they offer, such as one for higher value commercial property transactions. They are also looking to expand into the US and Australia.
The move is very timely, given the growing focus on how genAI performs in the legal sector.
Artificial Lawyer spoke to co-founder Edmond Boulle (pictured above right with co-founder Will Pearce) about the new strategy.
‘Everything we do is fully auditable,’ Boulle explained, hence any mistakes by their product can be proven.
The policy itself will be relatively inexpensive, he added, and a fractional additional cost of using Orbital Witness’s software. Customers can choose not to have the insurance policy, but Boulle believes that clients will welcome this extra level of security, knowing that if things go wrong they have coverage without having to resort to their own professional indemnity insurance.
This site added that it’s also a very smart form of marketing, as it shows a very high level of confidence in one’s own product. I.e. if you’re willing to offer insurance on what your product does as a software company, then implicitly you are sure of the accuracy of its results. How many other legal tech companies will be keen to offer this? It certainly sets Orbital Witness apart when it comes to genAI outputs.
As to how this came about, Boulle noted that they’d been thinking about insurance aspects for some time and had spoken to several insurance companies focused on the property sector. He added that there is a pull factor here and clients also have asked about the insurance of AI outputs. There are also compliance aspects, i.e. having this special insurance for genAI allows providers of residential property work (called conveyancing in the UK) to have potentially a higher level of risk reduction for their business.
Boulle also noted that in residential property work there is often a fixed fee, work is more standardised, and hence AI tools are a very good fit, as it’s a win-win for the lawyers. However, those lawyers also want reassurance and safeguards. The genAI product plus its own special insurance, addresses both the desire for more efficiency – hence higher profit margins – but also covers downside risks.
In short, having this insurance becomes a type of ‘kite mark’ for the use of genAI in the legal world. (N.B. kite marks are a common feature in many UK products and show they have attained a certain safety and/or quality standard.)
This site then asked about regulation on this, which needs a whole story of its own. But in short, in England & Wales the general message from legal regulators here is that while genAI concerns them, ultimately they handle the regulation of lawyers, not software, so it’s not easy for them to get into the details of what you can and cannot do with an AI product. That said, this position may change – but more on that another time.
To conclude, Boulle stated: ‘We are not saying this is a silver bullet, but we want law firms to feel comfortable. We believe we are the first to do this in the legal sector, but we will see more of this.’
And on the last point that will be fascinating to see. Will Orbital Witness’s genAI insurance be a one-off, or will many other legal tech companies follow their example? We shall see…
Either way, the field of legal genAI has just taken another step forward. Good luck to Orbital Witness.
P.S. here’s a comment from the insurance company standing behind this.
Kevin Dick, CEO at First Title, said: ‘AI is increasingly being applied to speed up and reduce the cost of real estate transactions. Law firms and conveyancing businesses need greater confidence that the AI technology they adopt is safe to use, can be relied upon and is compliant.
This distinctive new partnership, where First Title and Orbital Witness worked together, has produced that essential layer of reassurance to Orbital Witness’s law firm customers. First Title’s innovative insurance policy is the first of its kind and stands to be transformational in the professional services industries, creating a benchmark for other AI providers to aspire to.’