Predicting What’s New for Legal Tech in 2025: Prompt Engineering, Strategic AI, and Product Evolution

Part Four of Artificial Lawyer’s 2025 legal tech predictions highlights key trends — from ecosystems and prompt engineering to innovations and challenges — expected to shape the industry. Contributors include industry leaders from Weightmans, Virtual Intelligence VP, iManage, Relativity, and others who emphasize the continued evolution and integration of AI and legal technology. 

Product and market evolution: Legal AI and tech solutions will grow increasingly sophisticated, offering faster, feature-rich products that enhance workflows. While adoption across the legal industry remains slow, legal tech funding is predicted to surge as the AI market expands.

People and processes: Processes must be evaluated and updated to address the human side of change management and invest in upskilling legal teams. Neglecting the human element of innovation in 2025 would be a significant risk.

AI as a strategic tool: AI is anticipated to become a cornerstone of business development, making legal services more affordable and accessible. To adapt successfully, organizations should build integrated ecosystems that foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing between internal legal teams and outside counsel. AI education, training, and implementation of relevant tools must be emphasized. 

Challenges in implementation: While promising, generative AI tools require better-defined use cases and ROI measurement to gain long-term traction. Despite advancements, hurdles such as user adoption, ethical oversight, and trust in AI remain. Experts stress the importance of prioritizing the human element, upskilling professionals, and effectively communicating AI’s capabilities and limitations.

Key Trends for 2025: Legal AI tools will increasingly assist in complex tasks. Prompt engineering is predicted to become critical for maximizing AI potential. Users can choose from a menu of pre-engineered prompts with just a click, each customized to deliver specific insights or produce targeted content. 

These legal tech predictions for 2025 project further transformation of the legal industry through technological innovation and ecosystems that foster collaboration and knowledge sharing, ensuring meaningful progress within the legal profession.