Attendees
at
CES
2025
in
Las
Vegas.
(Photo
by
Artur
Widak/NurPhoto
via
Getty
Images)
All
week
at
CES,
I’ve
been
bombarded
with
session
after
session
on
AI
and
what
it
can
do.
I
have
seen
more
AI-based
products
than
I
can
recall,
many
of
which
will
never
see
the
light
of
day.
AI
is
everywhere
at
CES.
It’s
a
bit
much,
frankly.
But
on
Thursday,
a
CES
panel
presentation
tackled
a
question
that’s
been
on
my
mind
all
week.
What
do
all
these
AI
tools
mean
for
the
future
of
work
in
general?
What
do
businesses
and,
for
that
matter,
workers
need
to
do
to
prepare
for
the
brave
new
world
that
everyone
here
seems
to
be
promising
and
promoting?
A
related
question
for
me,
of
course,
is
how
all
these
tools
will
impact
what
lawyers
and
legal
professionals
do
and
how
they
work.
What
will
the
potential
AI
tools
mean
for
everyone
who
works
in
legal?
The
panel
presentation
was
entitled
Embracing
AI:
Revolutionizing
the
Future
of
Work
and
featured
several
HR/AI
experts.
What
Does
the
Future
Look
Like?
The
panelists
generally
agreed
that,
as
a
preliminary
matter,
businesses
need
to
realize
that
the
new
AI
tools
compel
them
to
rethink
how
employees
do
their
work
and
how
they
can
best
use
the
AI
tools
at
their
disposal.
Businesses
and
workers
need
to
accept
the
fact
that
AI
tools
will
eliminate
the
nonproductive
work
that
humans
now
do
—
preparing
minutes,
creating
action
items,
summarizing
documents,
etc.
That
work
will
be
done
by
AI.
Secondly,
AI
programs
will
enable
the
important
work
to
be
done
much
more
efficiently,
eliminating
work
humans
now
spend
time
doing.
And
finally,
and
importantly,
AI
will
enable
work
that
was
impossible
to
do
before
because
it
took
too
long
or
cost
too
much.
These
facts
are
given.
What
does
that
mean
for
the
workforce?
Some,
maybe
most,
workers
will
not
have
the
same
amount
and
kind
of
work
to
do
as
they
have
had.
That
can
be
a
problem.
But
on
the
plus
side,
the
panel
cited
statistics
that
support
the
idea
that
there
are
a
lot
more
things
that
could
be
substantively
accomplished
if
workers
didn’t
have
to
waste
time
on
unnecessary
tasks.
Granted,
the
workers
in
question
were
higher
up
the
food
chain
in
their
organizations.
All
panelists
agreed
that
as
AI
begins
to
do
more,
management
will
need
to
shift
what
workers
do.
Workers
will
require
new
and
different
skill
sets.
Management
will
need
new
ways
to
assess
performance.
A
New
Gameplan
There
are
two
ways,
of
course,
to
accomplish
the
shift.
The
first
is
to
simply
replace
the
existing
workforce
with
a
new
workforce
that
has
the
required
skills.
But
to
do
so
often
means
getting
rid
of
good
workers
who
best
understand
the
mission
and
culture
of
the
company
and
whose
departure
would
mean
wholesale
disruption.
The
better
way
is
to
reskill
the
existing
workforce
to
deal
with
and
contribute
to
the
new
work
realities.
That’s
not
easy,
the
panelists
agreed,
and
it
requires
first
an
understanding
of
what
skills
will
be
needed.
It
also
involves
the
creation
of
training
programs
to
get
workers
those
skills
and,
perhaps
most
challenging,
convincing
workers
to
buy
in
and
make
a
change
(nobody
likes
change,
especially
at
work).
There
are
no
easy
answers
to
the
coming
disruption,
but
at
least
that’s
a
game
plan.
What
About
Legal?
At
first
blush,
it
would
seem
the
panel’s
reskilling
game
plan
should
also
work
for
legal.
But
there
are
some
problems.
First,
law
firms,
lawyers,
and
legal
professionals
don’t
like
change.
They
don’t
like
change.
Getting
buy-in
from
the
stakeholders,
from
partners
to
associates
to
paralegals
and
everyone
else
in
a
law
firm,
won’t
be
easy.
But
there’s
a
more
fundamental
problem,
especially
for
many
law
firms.
It’s
the
billable
hour
business
model.
Yes,
AI
can
eliminate
time
spent
on
certain
tasks,
which
might
be
considered
nonproductive
work
the
panel
referred
to.
But
when
some
of
that
nonproductive
work
is
billable,
it’s
not
regarded
as
nonproductive
under
the
billable
hour
model.
So,
talking
about
changes,
identifying
work
AI
can
do,
and
then
reskilling
workers
may
strike
at
the
very
heart
of
the
business
model.
It
may
well
be
that
for
law
firms
to
take
advantage
of
AI
for
themselves
and
their
clients,
they
will
first
need
to
rethink
what
it
means
to
be
successful.
What
does
it
mean
to
be
a
good
lawyer
when
AI
can
be
used
to
better
and
more
economically
serve
clients?
A
better
baseline
understanding
may
be
needed
before
a
firm
can
figure
out
how
to
best
use
AI
and
how
to
reskill
its
workers
for
that
use.
Starting
with
shopping
for
AI
products
just
because
it’s
trendy
and
everyone
is
talking
about
it
isn’t
going
to
effectuate
the
kind
of
change
we
will
see
in
most
businesses.
Oh,
by
the
way. Those
businesses
making
changes
to
accommodate
the
new
world
of
work?
They
also
may
be
clients
who
have
some
new
expectations
for
their
law
firms.
Stephen
Embry
is
a
lawyer,
speaker,
blogger
and
writer.
He
publishes TechLaw
Crossroads,
a
blog
devoted
to
the
examination
of
the
tension
between
technology,
the
law,
and
the
practice
of
law.