Microsoft urges lawyers to trust new AI tool in Word

Microsoft is introducing an AI agent in Word, tailored for legal professionals. This Legal Agent oversees document revisions, negotiation history, and intricate files to aid legal teams with contract reviews and similar tasks.

“Rather than depending on general AI models to understand instructions, the agent adheres to structured workflows inspired by actual legal practices, executing defined, repeatable tasks such as examining contract clauses against a playbook,” states Sumit Chauhan, the corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Office Product Group.

The Legal Agent is compatible with current documents featuring tracked modifications and can scrutinise agreements and contracts to “identify risks and responsibilities.”

Microsoft is launching its Legal Agent to participants of its Frontier program in the United States as part of a larger initiative to integrate agent-like functionalities into Word.

This addition of the AI agent in Word follows several months after Microsoft recruited numerous AI experts and engineers from Robin AI, a company that fell short in developing an AI-driven contract evaluation platform.