LegalOn’s new ‘2026 State of AI for In-House Legal‘ survey has found that contract AI adoption is accelerating very rapidly now, with more than half (52%) of inhouse legal teams already using or evaluating the technology for that use case, with active usage nearly quadrupling since 2024.
This is a major change (see chart) and indicates that for many inhouse lawyers the use of AI tools is now ‘normal’. As said in previous years, this truly is a big change. For years, tech companies have cajoled inhouse lawyers to use AI tools for contract review, but without much success. Now, things are very different – in part no doubt because the tools are much more effective.
Other key findings include:
- 87% of respondents say AI would benefit pre-signature contract review and redlining, especially as legal teams spend an average of 3.1 hours reviewing a single contract,
- 79% report reduced time spent on routine legal tasks, and 67% report faster business response and turnaround times,
- 80% have also adopted, evaluated, or are learning about AI agents,
- 78% are comfortable delegating first-pass contract review to an agent under attorney supervision.
The survey also looked at developing playbooks for use with AI tools, underlining how essential they were. There is also some solid change there too – see below. That said, only a small minority had developed the necessary ‘fully comprehensive playbooks’ required to get the most out of contract AI tools. Although, the majority did have some type of clause library or playbook.
Daniel Lewis, Global CEO of LegalOn Technologies, commented: ‘Legal AI has become common in-house, and the ROI is clear. Now, teams are deciding how to expand it across even more work. This report reinforces what we hear from our customers. Contract review is the gateway to legal AI adoption, and the next phase is using AI in more daily work, in contracting, counseling and beyond.’
Is this a big deal? Well, yes. As noted, it cannot be over-stated how little inhouse lawyers were using AI tools for contract analysis until very recently. The shift is truly significant.
And while these contracts under review are perhaps not related to life or death legal matters, using AI for review changes an inhouse lawyer’s perception of what is possible, and thus it changes how they may view some parts of the work law firms do for them.
You can get the full LegalOn survey here.
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In December 2025, LegalOn partnered with In-House Connect to survey 452 in-house legal professionals.
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