Generative AI vendor Anthropic has unveiled a legal plugin that helps customise its large language model Claude for legal tasks such as document review, sending public legal software stocks into an ensuing spin today (3 February).
Anthropic in January launched Claude Cowork; a user-friendly version to make Claude Code more accessible. Claude Code is an agentic coding tool that lives in your terminal and can help you to execute routine tasks, while Cowork is a more accessible no-code version. Rather than just conversing in a chat interface, it can plan, execute and iterate through complex, multi-step workflows.
Anthropic entering the legal tech fray comes as part of the launch of a number of different plugins that help users instruct Claude on how to get work done and what tools and data to pull from. A sales plugin, for example could connect Claude to your CRM and knowledge base to help with prospect research and follow ups. The legal plug-in is described as being capable of, for example, reviewing documents, flagging risks, NDA triage, and tracking compliance. The significance is that Anthropic is shifting from model supplier to the application layer and workflow owner.
The announcement is hitting public publishing and legal software companies hard. Mainstream publications including Bloomberg and The Guardian are reporting significant drops in the share prices of Pearson, Relx (owner of LexisNexis), Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer and Sage. Shares in the London Stock Exchange Group fells by 8.5% amid fears of the impact of AI on data companies. It is, of course, yet unknown how it will impact the valuation of unlisted companies that operate in the in-house legal sector such as Harvey and Legora.
While it is no doubt hugely significant news and to some will be very welcome in terms of democratising legal GenAI tools, what will be worth noting and analysing in the coming weeks is Anthropic’s strategy for legal and mechanism of delivery. As nerves settle, we’ll be considering the longer term implications for the market.
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