Artificial intelligence is the hot topic these days among in-house legal staff, but it’s far from the only way to leverage data science for legal operations.

One case in point is Google’s Data Science and Patent Operations team, led by patent counsel and head of data science Steven Gong. For the past six years, Gong’s team has been leveraging big data in innovative, often experimental ways to transform legal ops, such as predicting budgetary future needs.