Automation or Augmentation? Legal AI Needs Both

Legal AI isn’t a tug-of-war: automation and augmentation? Instead, it’s a dual engine powering the next era of legal work, according to an article by Richard Tromans, Artificial Lawyer founder. That was the message echoing across the recent Legal Innovators UK conference, where speakers cut through hype and offered clarity on the distinction between the two.

Anton Carniaux of Microsoft in France set the tone by dismantling the false choice between replacing tasks and empowering people. The future, he argued, demands both: industrial-strength automation where it makes sense and smart augmentation where human judgment is indispensable. That framing shifted the conversation away from ideological debates and toward the practical work of designing balanced approaches. Accenture’s Anand Pandya pushed this thinking further with a call to “industrialize” select workflows, underscoring that although not every process should be automated, many absolutely should.

Kerry Westland of Addleshaw Goddard noted that innovation isn’t a single transformation; it’s a constellation of incremental upgrades. Legal AI adoption, she suggested, is less like installing a new tool and more like renovating a sprawling old mansion, fixing what’s outdated while opening entirely new rooms. The message landed clearly: Buying an AI platform isn’t the finish line. It’s the starting point for dozens of parallel improvements.

Culture added another layer of complexity to the discussion. An international panel featuring speakers from Brazil, India, and Portugal showed how legal markets differ in their needs, capabilities, and appetite for AI. For global firms and multinational legal departments, the takeaway was this: Context matters, and assuming uniform adoption strategies is a fast path to failure.

The ROI debate exposed the sharpest divide. Law firms wrestled with time-based models that resist efficiency, while in-house teams demanded measurable impact tied to deal velocity and revenue. That gap isn’t disappearing anytime soon.