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As eDiscovery day closely coincides with ChatGPT's third birthday, we reflect on how generative AI ("genAI") has gone from a novelty to an everyday tool for legal teams. It sits alongside proven machine learning in standard eDiscovery work - from early case assessment and scoping, to issue analysis, privilege review, disclosure and trial preparation. Courts and regulators expect technology-assisted review to be used responsibly and to be auditable. The question for in-house legal teams and law firms is not whether to use AI, but how to use it in a way that is defensible, cost-effective and clearly improves legal outcomes.
Through this article, we discuss how GenAI and intelligENS, the specialist legal technology division of ENS, can help legal teams get to the facts faster, protect privilege and raise quality – without risking defensibility. We ensure that internal and external standards on AI governance is met, both locally and aboard. We help inhouse legal teams and law firms augment their internal capabilities with specialised AI, data and investigation support, helping them reach the facts sooner while maintaining full legal integrity.
What GenAI does in in legal disputes data review
Modern eDiscovery combines proven machine learning with genAI to help lawyers surface key evidence from the outset, whether the data set contains hundreds or millions of documents. Based on known legal issues and human training, active learning quickly separates likely relevant from irrelevant documents. Guided by a matter brief and clear prompts, genAI summarises the relevant documents, groups them by issues in dispute and flags key (helpful or harmful) evidence immediately. The result is a strategic head start. In hours and days, not weeks or months, legal teams can see the themes, links and the factual shape of the case, so pleadings, settlement negotiations and investigation reports are grounded in evidence.
Active learning tools provide explainable, consistent and repeatable classifications and genAI explains the relevance of every document in plain language and produces a concise report of the key passages. Senior lawyers gain early access to the key documents they need to shape strategy and focus on the most material points without wading through pages of irrelevancy. In parallel, genAI enables the discovery review to produce more consistent relevance and privilege decision and logs, faster.
Responsible AI is an operating model, not a button
"Trust but verify" should be the rule. Responsible AI governs the ways of working across people, process and technology. It starts with sensible guardrails before anything is deployed This may include agreeing what acceptable accuracy looks like with internal stakeholders, the opposing parties and the court. It relies on transparent workflows, ongoing monitoring and iteration and human oversight that focuses on legal judgement.
Key disciplines include: selecting the right dataset; strict access controls aligned to local privacy rules, prompts designed carefully around the agreed legal issues and continuous testing with documented settings and checks. GenAI's reasoning for decisions should be visible through short explanations rationalising its decision and in-text links back to the source document or piece of evidence. If the genAI's explanations or in-text links cannot be found in the document, or it is simply echoing the prompt rather than the evidence, the methodology should automatically flag it for human review. Verification, sampling and targeted quality checks keep performance of the genAI within agreed limits and human oversight is essential. Conversely, the genAI output can be used to quality check the human review decisions too.
Built‑in privacy, security, data minimisation and defensibility
When we use AI in eDiscovery, we are handling clients' most sensitive information. The strict ground rules: keep data on secure, jurisdiction‑appropriate platforms, do not allow it to train external models and analyse only what is necessary for the specific legal purpose - nothing more.
Choose tools and providers that let you prove where data lives, who accessed it and when. Maintain clear records, including DPIAs, transfer risk assessments and data‑flow maps where applicable. Build in purpose limitation, segregation of duties and meaningful human oversight. Privilege, confidentiality and proportionality duties cannot be delegated to a model.
Defensibility is about disciplined process as much as technology. Your protocols should explain the approach in plain language, including key settings and validation checks, so every decision is traceable back to the documents. Preserve chain of custody. Record prompts and model versions. Keep a live register of privacy and procedural obligations. Done well, AI improves quality and lowers total cost by focusing review effort where it matters and cutting wasted reviewer hours, allowing budget to shift to strategy and negotiation.
How in-house legal teams and law firms work with intelligENS
intelligENS equips lawyers with leading technology-driven methodologies without the need to build an internal eDiscovery function. intelligENS designs, digitises and governs end-to-end methodologies that are auditable and privacy first, with our eDiscovery expertise and your legal expertise in the loop at the right moments. We set up a matter‑specific workflow under privilege, validate it with you, and then scale. Results come from combining our globally leading technology with platform fluency, forensic discipline and legal judgement. Our team has hands‑on experience of running genAI reviews successfully. We are experts in designing and translating genAI review methodologies into defensible legal outcomes and recognised at the forefront of global innovation in this space.
What in-house legal teams and law firms gain with intelligENS
You gain earlier sight of key facts and themes, tighter privilege control, and a documented method that courts and regulators can follow. Reviews are faster and higher quality, delivering predictable cost control. Most importantly, you keep accountability and strategic control: we make the evidence available, defensible and ready, so your team can focus on winning the legal arguments.
Conclusion: relevant innovation, measured results
This is not experimentation for its own sake. It is innovation that accelerates time to facts while preserving accountability. Trust the technology - but verify it. Keep humans in the loop. Make every decision traceable back to the record. That is how you cut noise, surface the signal, and progress your matter with confidence.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
