The AI arms race is ending. The AI adoption race is just beginning.

The AI arms race is ending. The AI adoption race is just beginning.

If LegalTechTalk 2026 in London revealed anything, it’s that legal teams have stopped asking which AI tools they should buy and started asking a much harder question: how do we help people use them successfully?

Last month, the LOD and Consilio team joined thousands of legal leaders, in-house counsel, law firms, legal ops professionals and tech providers at LegalTechTalk 2026. With conversations spanning AI adoption, governance, legal transformation and change management, the event offered a valuable snapshot of how the industry is evolving – and where organisations are focusing their efforts next.

Following the event, we caught up with Elliot Kushner, LOD’s Senior Client Solutions Manager,  
whose view was clear. The AI arms race is well underway, and the adoption race is just beginning.  

Q: Looking back on LegalTechTalk, what stood out most to you?

Without question, my biggest takeaway was that legal AI feels much more mature than it did a year ago.

Over the last couple of years, most conversations have centred around experimentation, proof-of-concepts and tech selection. This year felt noticeably different. The focus has shifted decisively towards implementation, adoption and measurable business outcomes.

What genuinely surprised me was how few people were talking about tech itself. Instead, the key question was ‘how to bring people with you through change’. Whether discussions focused on AI or broader transformation initiatives, the organisations making the most progress were the ones with clear priorities and leaders who knew exactly what they were trying to achieve.

In many ways, it feels as though the AI arms race is coming to an end, and the adoption race is just beginning. And ultimately, adoption is as much a people challenge as it is a tech challenge.

Q: What were people talking about the most?

What interested me most was how the conversation has evolved. A year ago, people were largely asking what AI could do. This year, many of the discussions focused on capability.

Legal teams are starting to think about the skills they’ll need over the next five years. How do you build lawyers who are comfortable working alongside tech? What new roles do you need in legal operations, legal engineering and transformation? Those conversations felt much more prominent than in previous years.

Five years from now, I don’t think we’ll be talking much about which AI tools organisations bought. We’ll be talking about whether they built the capability, culture and leadership needed to get value from them.

Q: Which trends do you think will have the biggest impact over the next year?

Three themes stood out to me:

1. Skills matter more than software

Most organisations have access to similar tools. The difference will come from how effectively they use the tools they already have.

The most forward-thinking legal teams are investing not just in tools, but in legal ops, legal engineering, change management and leadership capability. That’s where I think a lot of the competitive advantage will come from over the next few years.

2. The continued rise of implementation expertise

Tech alone does not deliver transformation. Organisations are recognising the value of legal engineers, legal operations professionals and change specialists who can bridge the gap between tech deployment and user adoption.

Across many of the legal teams we work with, the challenge isn’t deploying tech. That’s often the easy part. The hard part is helping people adopt it successfully.

This remains a challenge for many businesses, creating a significant opportunity for organisations that can combine tech expertise with implementation and change-management capabilities.

3. Greater emphasis on partnerships

A recurring theme throughout the event was that successful transformation rarely happens in isolation.

The most effective outcomes are being delivered through collaboration between tech providers, service partners and in-house legal teams. Rather than focusing solely on individual products or capabilities, organisations are looking for the right mix of partners and specialists that can help them achieve tangible business outcomes. No single provider has all the answers, which is why we’re seeing much greater emphasis on ecosystems of expertise.

Q: Was there anything that surprised you during the event?

I was surprised by how much pragmatism has overtaken hype.

Honestly, I expected to hear more conversations about new products. Instead, many of the most interesting discussions were about relatively unglamorous topics such as training, capability building and behaviour change.

That might not grab headlines, but it’s a sign that the market is maturing.

Q: What’s one insight that has really stayed with you since the event?

One of my favourite moments came during an LOD panel, chaired by Nigel Rea: Building the plane while flying it: Lessons from high-growth teams redefining the function, featuring Phoebee Gahan (NScale), Tara Haig (Multiverse) and Vanessa Vilar (The Magnum Ice Cream Company).

While reflecting on Magnum's separation from Unilever, Vanessa shared a simple but powerful story. To create alignment across the newly independent organisation, she gave team members a Delft tile featuring a single question:

"Will it sell more ice cream?"

I loved the simplicity of it.

For me, that story captured the entire conference. Amid all the conversation about AI, automation and transformation, the most powerful lesson was actually about leadership. People don’t need more complexity. They need clarity.

It's a powerful reminder that the best leaders create clarity, not complexity. During periods of transformation, people need a clear and memorable north star that helps guide decisions and prioritisation.

Having worked closely with Magnum over the past 12 months, I've seen first-hand how successful transformation comes when organisations align people around a shared purpose and make decision-making simpler, not more complicated.

Q: What opportunities are legal teams most excited about right now?

Many legal teams are excited about the opportunity to become more strategic contributors to their businesses.

As AI automates and accelerates aspects of legal work, it creates space for legal professionals to focus on work that has a bigger impact on the business, including commercial strategy, risk management and business partnering.

At the same time, we’re seeing entirely new career opportunities emerge. Roles in legal ops, legal engineering and transformation are becoming increasingly important. That’s exciting because it expands what a successful legal career can look like.

Q: What's one thing you’d encourage organisations to keep an eye on over the next 6–12 months?

As tech becomes more accessible, competitive advantage will likely come less from access to tools and more from the ability to implement change effectively.

The organisations making the most progress are often investing not only in tech, but also in leadership, people, partnerships and change capabilities. They'll focus on creating clarity, simplifying complexity and building the conditions necessary for adoption at scale.

In many ways, transformation is becoming less about tech and more about execution. It’ll be interesting to see how that balance continues to evolve over the next 6-12 months.

Q: For anyone who missed the event, what’s the one key message you’d leave them with?

The legal industry has spent the last few years exploring what's possible. The next phase is about delivering results.

Tech will continue to evolve, but organisations that invest equally in people as much as their tech are likely to see the strongest results.

LegalTechTalk 2026 made one thing clear: the next phase of legal transformation won’t be defined by who has the newest tools, but by who can turn them into meaningful change. For legal teams, that means building the clarity, capability and confidence to move from AI ambition to measurable impact.

‍