// knowledge base · research review · September 2026

AI in legal departments: findings of the Deloitte UK and RSGI study

A diff.legal material based on the Deloitte UK and RSGI report “The AI Imperative: Reshaping of the Legal Industry” (June 2026): a survey of 121 legal-function leaders and interviews with law firms. This is an editorial summary; for exact wording, refer to the original source.

Adoption dynamics

Over two years the structure has changed radically: in 2024, 76% of the legal functions surveyed had not adopted AI at all; by mid-2026 only 2% remained. 61% of respondents are in deployment phases, and a further 10% have fully embedded AI into their work.

Budgets

79% of legal functions have increased AI spending; the average increase is 67% year on year. Investment has ceased to be experimental: AI is entering the regular budgets of legal departments.

The gap between expectations and maturity

Respondents expect to automate 28% of legal work within 2–3 years, but only 21% report mature governance of AI agents. Expectations are running ahead of organisational readiness: without usage rules, quality control and data protection, adoption creates risks rather than savings — which is consistent with Russian court practice treating the transfer of data to public AI services as disclosure of a secret (court practice review).

People and roles

The report stresses the importance of AI literacy and adaptability among lawyers and highlights the growing role of the legal engineer — a specialist who connects legal work with tool configuration. For corporate legal functions this means that AI adoption is not only a question of licences but also of policies, training and quality control of results.

The connection with the work of diff.legal

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