Thomson Reuters Acquired Last summer, legal research firm CaseText was gradually rolling out an artificial intelligence legal assistant that caught the attention of startups. Co-AdvisorOpenAI GPT-4 We have integrated large language models into our broader workflow. Previously, CoCounsel was basically Chatbots It is included within a range of Thomson Reuters legal services and is also available as a stand-alone product. CoCounsel CoreAvailable without a Westlaw subscription.
Thomson Reuters announced on Wednesday that in addition to further expanding CoCounsel's legal capabilities, it is also expanding the reach of its generative AI assistant beyond legal to “all the professionals we serve,” including applying CoCounsel to the firm's tax, risk, fraud and media practice areas.
The release states that the latest CoCounsel rollout “completes Casetext's integration into Thomson Reuters.” Additionally, it clarifies that while the name CoCounsel originally referred to its legal generative AI assistant, the product will now be called CoCounsel Core (and not just a standalone product). Going forward, “Thomson Reuters will use CoCounsel as the common name for the Single Gen AI assistant available across its portfolio,” the release states.
Legal department update
As part of the recent announcement, Thomson Reuters is introducing three new CoCounsel Skills:–Basically, your specific use case–Intended for legal and tax professionals.
First, Thomson Reuters announced the official launch of Westlaw Edge UK in collaboration with CoCounsel, teasing the availability of this AI-assisted research capability to UK clients. march.
Second, Thomson Reuters announced the integration of CoCounsel with Microsoft 365. CoCounsel will be available in beta to customers in the US and UK starting this summer, with integrated applications for Microsoft Teams, Word, Outlook and SharePoint.
Finally, the company announced its first generative AI product for tax professionals, Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel, a tool that uses proprietary content from Thomson Reuters to answer tax audit questions, scheduled to begin rolling out in the U.S. this summer.
A screenshot of Thomson Reuters' CoCounsel Gen AI assistant. Image courtesy of Thomson Reuters.Deploying CoCounsel to “every business segment”
In addition to CoCounsel's new legal skills, the release mentions that Thomson Reuters intends to use generative AI to create a unified customer experience across all its services: “Over time, CoCounsel will link Thomson Reuters products across its entire portfolio, meaning clients will be able to bring together multiple skills and workflows from different products in one place, improving user experience and value,” the release states, specifically citing uses in risk, fraud and media in addition to law and tax.
To support CoCounsel's expansion, Thomson Reuters pointed to a newly released global AI survey that found 81% of professionals see AI being applicable to their jobs. “To meet our customers' changing needs, we need to build and apply the best of GenAI applications to the way professionals work,” David Wong, chief product officer at Thomson Reuters, said in the release. “As our products continue to expand and improve, the customer experience will remain centered around the GenAI assistant, while CoCounsel learns new skills and capabilities, unlocking productivity and becoming the way professionals work.”
CoCounsel currently uses OpenAI's GPT-4 LLM, and it's likely Thomson Reuters will continue to rely on the AI company's models, at least in part, going forward. “We're pleased to continue working with Thomson Reuters. By powering solutions like CoCounsel, their new professional-grade AI assistant, together we will increase the creativity and productivity of knowledge workers,” Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's chief operating officer, said in the release.
For those worried that CoCounsel’s expansion into other business lines means Thomson Reuters is abandoning its Casetext legal roots, there’s no need to worry, Pablo Arredondo, vice president of CoCounsel at Thomson Reuters, told Legaltech News: “No, absolutely not. [Casetext co-founder] Jake [Heller] “My husband and I are lawyers, and this continues to be our passion,” he said.
While some of their capacity will be dedicated to preparing CoCounsel for expansion, Arredondo said the aim is to ensure all departments can use their expertise to get up and running. “A lot of the safeguards that we developed for the very important legislation can be applied beyond the legislation, and the systems that we’ve built to continue to expand what the legislation can do can be used to expand into other areas,” he noted.
Arredondo also framed CoCounsel's expansion as a natural progression of technology, noting that since Casetext's early days when it was focused solely on litigation, the industry has been pushing for its expansion into contracts and more. He added that “this generation of GPTs is so flexible that it would be almost criminal not to apply it elsewhere.”
Additional CoCounsel skills are expected to be introduced later this year, the release said, with the new generative AI skills expected to be rolled out across products in all business segments served by Thomson Reuters under the CoCounsel brand going forward.
