The future of agentic AI in legal practice

Agentic AI (artificial intelligence) could reshape the legal landscape as we know it. This report examines what changes it may bring and how solicitors, firms and in-house teams can prepare.

14 Apr 2026

3 minutes read

If agentic AI systems could soon begin to act like autonomous decision makers, what does this mean for the legal sector?

Could law firms, courts and regulators one day find themselves negotiating with AI systems that behave more like organisations than tools?

This report considers the opportunities and unintended consequences of agentic AI for the legal profession.

Agentic AI systems don’t simply perform a task – they set goals, plan actions and execute strategies without the need for human instruction. They can pursue objectives over time, across platforms and with minimal supervision.

This sets agentic AI apart from AI agents and generative AI, which produce content within the guardrails of human initiation.

Summary of key findings

The report finds the impact of agentic AI may be incremental rather than sudden.

For example:

solicitors delegating ‘just one more task’ to AI systems
judges consulting AI outputs to ease backlogs
firms restructuring around workflows where AI is the first point of contact

If left unaddressed, this could normalise:

invisible substitution of professional judgement
the emergence of quasi-institutional AI actors, and
a gradual shift of authority away from humans toward systems that are powerful but unaccountable

This could have wide ranging implications for regulation, liability and operational models.

Other highlights from the report include:

Regulation isn’t keeping up with automation

Agentic AI adoption is being driven by increasing use of APIs (application programming interfaces).

APIs allow different software and systems to share information with each other.

Agentic AI systems are using APIs to carry out functions where repetitive, rule-based tasks are well-suited to automation. For example, content lifecycle management.

Technology companies are developing API-driven integration faster than professional governance and regulation can keep up. This could allow agentic behaviours to emerge without clear accountability.

Confusion and knowledge gaps are widespread

Many solicitors confuse agentic AI with AI agents and generative AI.

This is allowing technology suppliers to shape narratives and expectations and potentially distort the market.

For example, several in-house solicitors described being asked to ‘deliver agentic solutions’ despite the underlying technology lacking the right capabilities.

Governance and oversight are changing

Many legal teams are experimenting with governance practices that require less direct human supervision.

A common example is assessing AI performance of large-scale document and contract review models through statistical sampling, instead of manual review.

In these cases, governance becomes less about checking every output and more about validating whether the system behaves reliably within defined bounds.

This is a significant departure from existing professional assumptions about responsibility and control.

Accountability frameworks do not yet fit autonomous systems

Solicitors remain responsible for outputs produced by agentic AI tools, despite not being able to fully audit these outputs.

This is creating a widening regulatory and liability gap.

Workforce and skills could be impacted

Increasing reliance on agentic AI could erode solicitors’ interpretive and analytical judgement over time.

Junior roles are expected to change first and most dramatically. Routine administrative tasks may decline, while oversight, validation and hybrid legal–technology responsibilities may expand.

Risks need urgent clarity

When actions are initiated by agentic AI systems rather than people, established assumptions about what is privileged, what must be disclosed and what constitutes a legal communication become complicated. This could create new disclosure risks.

Errors in agentic AI systems also risk being repeated rapidly across multiple matters.

There is an urgent need for clearer standards on testing, auditing and accreditation. Stronger safeguards for privacy and confidentiality are also needed.

Agentic AI can create new opportunities

When implemented responsibly, agentic AI can:

increase efficiency without undermining professional standards
embed accountability and trust into legal processes
enable continuous monitoring of business operations and real-time risk assessment

However, the profession needs clearly defined boundaries to decide which decisions must remain human.