Merry Christmas From AL + Some Predictions – Back Jan 6th

Merry Christmas to all of Artificial Lawyer’s readers around the world! I’m off on holiday now and back on Jan 6^th. Thank you for engaging with this site online and in-person, you make it what it is! And at this point there are meant to be a ton of predictions…..

…but, I have been so focused on the day-to-day and also the ‘Very Big Picture’, i.e. what’s coming down the road in the next five to ten years, I’ve not been thinking too much about what will happen over the next six to 12 months, aside from the fact that Legal Innovators (see here) will now be doing four conferences in major world cities in 2026:

• San Francisco, California – June
• Paris, France – June
• New York, New York – November
• London, UK – November

But, if you want some broad brushstrokes for what will go down over the next 12 months, here are some key takeaways for now, with links to associated AL articles for reference:

• There will be more NewMod law firms: see ‘New Model Army’. They have a compelling ‘AI + legal expert + fixed fees strategy‘, which makes the most of the technology they can wield. They don’t have everything in their favour, but the wind is behind them, one might say. 2026 will be a big year for NewMods.
• Foundational models will keep getting better, and so legal AI will get better as well.
• More law firms will bring on broad AI platforms and the battle between those providers will also continue – and globalise even more.
• Most law firms will continue to operate in the same way as they did in 2025, but management teams will increasingly start to think about the fact that it’s ‘when the model has to transform’, rather than ‘if it transforms’. I.e. the real issue will be a question of timing. Personally, I take a long-term view, others believe it will happen a lot faster. We shall see. Check out this Artificial Lawyer piece about different legal AI business models for law firms.

• Inhouse lawyers will also increasing make use of AI tools, but will continue to send high risk, more complex work to law firms, which in turn will increasingly raise their rates for such high value work. But, their expectations will certainly change as to what ‘a law firm’ should look like and provide.
• Overall, demand for legal services will increase as our global civilisation grows and becomes ever more complex and regulated.

In short, the legal market – despite the challenges of being a bit destabilised by the powerful forces of AI – has never had it so good. And in time, those AI forces will come to be seen by many lawyers as a net positive. The challenge, as ever, is broad and deep change management – and adapting to what is the first true transformational technology for the legal market since Word and email arrived.

And of course, legal AI companies also have huge growth ahead of them in 2026, at least those who get their ‘go to market’ and their business strategy right.

And as to more predictions for 2026, I am going to spend some time over the holidays thinking on this and then I’ll be asking a select group of folks for their insights when AL returns in January.

Have a great Christmas and see you in the New Year!

Richard Tromans, Founder, Artificial Lawyer, and Chair of the Legal Innovators conferences – Dec 2025.