A new Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning report published last week by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) indicates that while law firms may be expecting AI to yield "fundamental change" within the industry, lawyers shouldn't count on a significant portion of the work they perform being replaced by software.

When asked how long they believed it would be before AI-powered software would create "fundamental change" in the legal industry, the plurality of respondents (38%) to the ILTA survey said one to three years.

However, those changes may not equate to attorneys being able to drop entire items from their to-do lists all together. A separate question asked what the percentage of work (either legal or nonlegal) done by lawyers that respondents believed would be replaced by AI within the next five years. The majority of replies (55%) answered between 0-10%.

So where's the fundamental change happening? Beth Anne Stuebe, director of publications and press at ILTA, pointed to process and procedure-oriented business functions like budgeting as the areas where most of the work is changing as a result of AI and machine learning.

"I think it's talking about making the jobs more efficient and having a little bit better understanding maybe of the business problems the entire firm organization is trying to solve," Stuebe said.

But attempts to address those overarching business problems could actually wind up driving some fundamental changes of their own within the industry. For example, when asked whether legal departments should be leading law firms in the adoption of AI or vice versa, the majority of respondents (74%) indicated there should be a "mutual collaboration" between the two entities.

Stuebe believes this could open the door to law firms and legal departments working more closely together to address common problems down the line.

"I think everyone is trying to solve intrinsic business problems. Mutual collaboration only helps. We're not talking about privileged data here; we're talking about trying to solve business problems, and that's in the end essential to everyone's business," Stuebe said.

Other potential changes may be tied directly into the process by which organizations continue to refine their adoption of AI and machine learning tools. Per the survey, the the majority of respondents (80%) said a firm's chief information officer/IT director was the role typically involved in any AI-powered software purchase, development, training and deployment. Attorneys themselves followed closely behind at 62%—but innovation teams were a distant third with 42% of the vote.

Still, there's a chance that innovation teams could retake some ground as firms gain a better understanding how and why AI is being adopted under their roofs. For example, survey respondents identified contract analysis, discovery and investigation analysis, and legal research as the top three areas where AI-powered software would attain acceptable maturity first. Stuebe raised the possibility that e-discovery professionals and other legal technologists may develop their own processes and duties related to the deployment of AI.

"I think that's something we'll probably have answer to fairly shortly—I hope before the next decade," Stuebe said.

However, one thing that may not be changing any time soon is the relatively small number of law firms developing AI solutions from scratch, a demographic that represented only 10% of respondents. Purchasing out-of-the-box tools was the preferred way of procuring AI at 45%, following by customizing an out-of-the box tool at 32% and purchasing a platform and developing a tool within that platform at 13%.

This is a reality that may be dictated by limited resources more than attitudes toward AI. While bigger law firms may develop AI-tools customized toward specific tasks, there are still plenty of smaller entities that will keep outside software developers in business.

"Out-of-box tools are going to continue to, as we've seen, have great market share," Stuebe said.

ILTA declined to provide the number of respondents to its survey, but noted it was open to every member and partner within the organization, including attorneys and legal technologists from both the U.S. and international markets.