Skip to content
Tony Wood
Home

Legal’s New Centre of Gravity: Why Boards Can’t Wait for an AI “Playbook”

Tony Wood |

The mood at LegalTechTalk O2 this year was unmistakable: legal technology is no longer a sideshow. Boardrooms are debating not “if” but “how soon” agentic AI can reshape their companies’ legal engines. As I took in the candid backroom stories, one question tied the room together: Can agentic legal platforms finally solve the old dilemma making legal fast, safe, and strategic at the same time, not just chipping a few minutes off process steps?

I saw first-hand: the gap is closing between what boards need (business agility, auditability, trusted guardrails) and what agentic systems now deliver (self-serve contracting, real-time feedback, distributed risk oversight). The next eighteen months will decide which legal leaders create value at scale and which get left behind.

Legal teams everywhere face relentless pressure: bigger workloads, static budgets, and demanding stakeholders. Yet the best organisations aren’t just patching process leaks. They are using agentic AI to rewire how contract work happens, who owns risk, and how board value is captured.

“Agentic AI streamlines legal contract management by automating critical tasks such as contract review, redlining, risk assessment, and self-service workflows... With agentic AI, business teams initiate, review, and triage contracts in minutes not days, bringing legal intelligence directly into business decision-making… Legal is transformed from a bottleneck to a strategic partner, with all exceptions logged and traceable for audit.”
 The Rise of Agentic AI: Transforming Legal and Enterprise Workflows (contractpodai.com), Trust: Medium-High, Clear market trend and user case, 2025.

• FTSE 250 pilots now let marketing, procurement, and sales “pull” legal expertise into contract workflows directly from familiar tools like Teams and Slack.
• NDAs, MSAs and more are triaged, flagged, and even pre-redlined by agentic systems before a lawyer ever reviews them.
• This isn’t just about speed. It’s about letting business move while risks stay tracked every action is searchable, auditable, ready for board review.

2. Risk No Longer Bottled Up

Old model: legal held all decision rights; business waited its turn.
New model: Agentic AI captures the playbook flagged clauses, red-flag conditions guiding business users to stay safe “as they go,” not “after the fact.”
Legal teams become knowledge guardians, not bottlenecks.

3. Shift Metrics: From Billable Hours to Enterprise Value

C-level concern is shifting from “faster tasks” to “faster business.”
Boards want evidence that AI-driven legal:
• Shrinks cycle time so revenue closes faster.
• Logs exceptions and actions for robust audit trails.
• Rebalances spend: strategic advice up, basic process down.
• Adjusts to new geographies and rules with less chaos.

Board-Driven Adoption: Where Strategy Meets Reality

No platform succeeds on automation alone. The most insightful pilots at LegalTechTalk proved that adoption bottlenecks change management, human trust, and board sponsorship are real.

How winning legal teams are smoothing the path:
• Purposeful onboarding for non-lawyers start with NDA wins, build up confidence.
• Metrics and success stories that validate the new ways of working.
• Agile feedback loops business, legal, IT all shape the journey.

Some panels raised the biggest open question:
When AI can do in seconds what once took hours, how are time and value recognised and billed? If smaller, nimbler firms use agentic AI, do they outcompete legacy giants head-on?

Agentic AI: Your Strategic Upgrade, Not Just a New Tool

Board leaders have a choice: play “wait and see”, or define the rules by running bold pilots, measuring impact, and iterating fast.

Here’s where to start:

  • See legal as an enterprise value multiplier, not a compliance afterthought.
  • Get cross-functional buy-in pilots fail when led by one silo.
  • Empower legal to create and share digital playbooks for safer self-service, everywhere.

“Agentic tools can work out without any emotion, and they don't have any tied in references to the business, unless you tell them to. This capacity lets boards ask: ‘What are we missing?’ without fear of politics or unexamined loyalties shaping the answer.”
- Unlock Consistent Board Vision: Why Agentic AI Delivers Blind Spot Protection (tonywood.co), Trust: High, Recognised thought leader in legal strategy, 2025.

The lesson from LegalTechTalk is straightforward: The firms that act now learning, adjusting, and scaling agentic legal pilots will not just adapt to industry disruption. They will shape the market on their terms.

If you’re on the board, consider this your call to action:

  • Authorise a modest pilot, measure fast, and scale what works.
  • Mandate real metrics, not just anecdotes.
  • Make legal transformation part of your next board strategy session.

The window is open. The only question is: Will legal be the laggard, or will your team set the new standard for value-driven transformation?

Links:

Share this post

Keep reading