AI - A good candidate for commercial awareness?

[BuddingLawyer]

Hi

I started late on commercial awareness (currently in second year) and wonder if "emergence of AI and developments around AI" is a good topic to choose for applications and interviews. I did some research and good hooked onto the topic:

- Firstly the significant impact of AI and machine learning INTERNALLY on legal tech of law firms and helping them to automate loads of low level tasks (done by trainees currently) and freeing human resources to do higher value billable tasks. Hence increasing efficiency , cut costs and raise law firm profits.

- Secondly, hundreds of opportunities to advice companies who want to integrate machine learning and chat bots into their systems - and help them navigate through regulatory, data protection and other challenges. Hence more business.

- Thirdly, AI's overall impact on governments, companies and society cant be underestimated. For example companies trying to build strong data sets (of text , video and images ) .This will result in tons of business for law firms in areas of copyright infringements , Intellectual Property issues, data privacy and regulation, regulatory advice , general lawsuits, data protection and so on. So more business for law firms

- Next, AI chips (Nvidia's dominance) being in short supply, governments like Saudi Arabia trying to buy chips it in bulk and trying to become AI knowledge houses , US trying to block some AI components to China etc - all this looks like a heady cocktail of issues around regulation, supply demand issues, data protection and other interesting new issues (previously unimagined) - law firms who make first mover advantage in developing knowledge competencies and have first mover advantage with both governments and companies - should see their business zoom over medium to long term.

The point of this post is ONLY to check with experts on this forum if my decision to choose AI as a news story is a good one or not. Am I on the right track OR dump AI and choose another story ? is it early days and there isnt much for law firms ?

I am also worried because I cant a lot of Banking/Finance/Capital market context around AI and will companies see this as a "weak" story ?

@Jake Rickman and others your opinion will be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Jessica Booker]

AI is an exceptionally large topic and not a “news story” - it is a much bigger/long term trend.

Rather than talking about it broadly (like you are doing above) try to find a more specific story about AI. For instance, has a company recently been bought for its AI technology? Has a company recently been sued for its AI technology? Has AI been really successful in a particular market? Is one country leading the way with AI?

So find a more specific story and you answer the question and are likely to 1) have a more unique answer and 2) talk about the story in much more depth of analysis than you can do if you talk about AI generally and 3) still be demonstrating your commercial awareness around a very important broader topic.

 

[Jake Rickman]

Hi

I started late on commercial awareness (currently in second year) and wonder if "emergence of AI and developments around AI" is a good topic to choose for applications and interviews. I did some research and good hooked onto the topic:

- Firstly the significant impact of AI and machine learning INTERNALLY on legal tech of law firms and helping them to automate loads of low level tasks (done by trainees currently) and freeing human resources to do higher value billable tasks. Hence increasing efficiency , cut costs and raise law firm profits.

- Secondly, hundreds of opportunities to advice companies who want to integrate machine learning and chat bots into their systems - and help them navigate through regulatory, data protection and other challenges. Hence more business.

- Thirdly, AI's overall impact on governments, companies and society cant be underestimated. For example companies trying to build strong data sets (of text , video and images ) .This will result in tons of business for law firms in areas of copyright infringements , Intellectual Property issues, data privacy and regulation, regulatory advice , general lawsuits, data protection and so on. So more business for law firms

- Next, AI chips (Nvidia's dominance) being in short supply, governments like Saudi Arabia trying to buy chips it in bulk and trying to become AI knowledge houses , US trying to block some AI components to China etc - all this looks like a heady cocktail of issues around regulation, supply demand issues, data protection and other interesting new issues (previously unimagined) - law firms who make first mover advantage in developing knowledge competencies and have first mover advantage with both governments and companies - should see their business zoom over medium to long term.

The point of this post is ONLY to check with experts on this forum if my decision to choose AI as a news story is a good one or not. Am I on the right track OR dump AI and choose another story ? is it early days and there isnt much for law firms ?

I am also worried because I cant a lot of Banking/Finance/Capital market context around AI and will companies see this as a "weak" story ?

@Jake Rickman and others your opinion will be appreciated.
Thanks

Hi,

I think your analysis is good, though you may want to find specific use cases for each heading. That said, I do personally feel that discussing AI in an interview is analogous to crypto/blockchain technology a couple of years ago. That is, every interviewer can guarantee that they will hear applicants discuss it, and it is unlikely they will articulate a truly novel insight because everything that can be said about it has already been said.

Merely 1 out of 6 public companies have actually mentioned AI in their regulatory findings, despite everyone talking about it. This demonstrates that the technology is still in it is incubation.

So if it were me, I’d try and find another topic so I can stand out more. Because you will not be the only person focussing on AI.

 

[BuddingLawyer]

Hi,

I think your analysis is good, though you may want to find specific use cases for each heading. That said, I do personally feel that discussing AI in an interview is analogous to crypto/blockchain technology a couple of years ago. That is, every interviewer can guarantee that they will hear applicants discuss it, and it is unlikely they will articulate a truly novel insight because everything that can be said about it has already been said.

Merely 1 out of 6 public companies have actually mentioned AI in their regulatory findings, despite everyone talking about it. This demonstrates that the technology is still in it is incubation.

So if it were me, I’d try and find another topic so I can stand out more. Because you will not be the only person focussing on AI.

This is so helpful. Thanks

 

[BuddingLawyer]

AI is an exceptionally large topic and not a “news story” - it is a much bigger/long term trend.

Rather than talking about it broadly (like you are doing above) try to find a more specific story about AI. For instance, has a company recently been bought for its AI technology? Has a company recently been sued for its AI technology? Has AI been really successful in a particular market? Is one country leading the way with AI?

So find a more specific story and you answer the question and are likely to 1) have a more unique answer and 2) talk about the story in much more depth of analysis than you can do if you talk about AI generally and 3) still be demonstrating your commercial awareness around a very important broader topic.

Thank you so much for your advice