Summize Buys Part Of InnoLaw Group

AI-driven CLM company Summize is acquiring ‘key personnel and proprietary assets’ from InnoLaw Group (ILG), a legal tech consultancy focused on the inhouse world. The move follows the recent partnerships between Wordsmith and companies such as Morae and Consilio, underlining the need for a significant human element in AI implementation.

The move also mirrors a wider pattern across the AI market toward building FDE (Forward Deployed Engineering) teams, e.g. OpenAI has heavily invested in this area to get their AI taken up by enterprise customers.

It also follows the $50m of fresh funding into Summize this January. The deal will not include ILG’s Lucy Bassli, CEO and founder of InnoLaw. She will continue as an independent advisor to legal tech startups and executives, they said.

As to the reason for the deal, Summize explained: ‘This acquisition strengthens [our] ability to deliver complex, enterprise-grade CLM implementations for our growing global customer base.

‘As demand for AI-powered contracting solutions continues to grow, successful adoption increasingly depends on expert implementation, faster rollout and strong change management. ‘

And that’s the key phrase here: ‘depends on expert implementation’.

Why is that? It’s because clients are now really seeking to use AI at scale and with significant depth in their organisations. That in turn means equally thorough implementation support.

Ultimately – and perhaps ironically – the demand for more humans is a sign that companies are getting more serious about AI use. When it was just for press releases and experiments, then you didn’t really need much support. But, if you are serious about business process transformation, then you need help. That Summize is doing this now underlines a growing demand for their AI offering.

The CLM company added: ‘By integrating the InnoLaw Group team into its implementation organization, Summize immediately expands its bench of legal operations and CLM experts to complement its existing services, enabling a white-glove offering capable of meeting the requirements of large-scale projects.’

Tom Dunlop, CEO and co-founder of Summize, commented: ‘Bringing the InnoLaw team and the vast amount of knowledge and associated content in house is a significant step for Summize. Their depth of experience in CLM implementation and adoption is exceptional, and their focus on genuine customer value mirrors our own. As we welcome more global customers of different sizes from multiple industry sectors, having this level of operational expertise in-house means we can guarantee the kind of value and outcomes our customers expect from AI contract intelligence.’

And Lara Trope, Chief Client Officer at InnoLaw, added: ‘Having worked alongside the Summize team on several projects, the cultural fit was obvious, and we’re aligned on our obsession with customer value and outcomes. I’m excited to lead the implementation function and to hit the ground running with new and existing clients.’

Congrats to them. And as AL notes above, this underlines a wider trend.

More about Summize here.