With global legal network TerraLex preparing to launch its AI-driven intelligent assistant known as myLexi, TerraLex CEO Terri Pepper tells Global Legal Post how the new platform will give its members and their clients instant access to institutional knowledge whenever they need it.

What are myLexi’s capabilities?

myLexi is a proprietary AI tool for TerraLex that will help us automate communications via an interface on our website. myLexi will answer questions and provide information gleaned from the resources available through TerraLex members, our website and the TerraLex team. It will help us manage inquiries in over 120 languages and provide personalised, 24/7 support for member engagement.

For example, TerraLex has a large collection of cross-border guides on its website. These guides provide valuable information on a wide range of subjects such as M&A, real estate, ESG and sustainable finance, doing business in various jurisdictions and mining, and so on. myLexi has learned the information in these guides, which was supplied by members around the world. Anyone can visit our website and ask a question such as “Does (XYZ) jurisdiction provide for any specific regulations for employee inventions?” and myLexi will supply the response. The information contained in these cross-border guides is available free of charge and represents a uniquely valuable asset for companies doing business globally. myLexi will make it even easier to extract this information.

What is the underlying technology underpinning it? Who has supplied it? How much has it cost?

myLexi is built on a platform from Betty AI, (aka Betty Bot) which was founded to be an AI solution tailored for associations. Betty Bot’s pricing is based on a subscription model. While we can’t share the specific amount we paid, we can point you to the pricing section of Betty AI’s website.

What is the story behind its development and implementation to this point?

TerraLex is an elite global legal network of approximately 140 leading law firms across the globe representing more than 23,000 lawyers. At the same time, we are a not-for-profit association, with a small team managing all operations. myLexi will enable us to add additional support to our members and their clients without the need to hire additional staff. Implementation is relatively straightforward, and Betty Bot has made it very easy for us to implement this powerful AI tool. We are presently in the phase of training myLexi on all the information we have available and are beginning a test phase within the next week in which we test myLexi and help refine responses to questions and information requests.

To what extent is information pooled and shared across the TerraLex network? Did that present legal and technical challenges and how were they overcome?

As one of the world’s most collaborative law firm networks, our members routinely share knowledge and information in formats such as the cross-border guides described above, webinars and programmes, and through practice groups and industry sector teams, and so on. Much of this shared information already exists on our website, so myLexi quickly accessed it and was trained on it. To supplement this, our team has provided a long list of common questions that we receive and the replies, and myLexi is being trained on this information presently. 

We view this as an iterative process and will continually ensure that myLexi is trained on any new resources or information added. We have not had any legal or technology challenges to date, largely because of the turnkey manner in which Betty Bot operates. They’ve made it extraordinarily easy for us to implement the tool (coming up with the name took longer than training myLexi on our resources). myLexi will provide answers to common non-technical questions, it will not deliver any confidential information, nor is myLexi providing or intended for legal advice.

The launch of myLexi is scheduled for May. What plans do you have in place to encourage take up?

We have promotional campaigns geared towards our members. We will start with an official launch at our next global meeting in Toronto in May and then will provide regular communication and training to our members and the client community to ensure they are leveraging this powerful tool. We plan to use a combination of methods to promote myLexi and encourage take up such as demos and presentations at our global and regional meetings, social media campaigns, training of constituents in member firms during our team’s member visits, and promotion during the various general counsel programmes that we sponsor throughout the year, to name a few.

Much has been written about the ability of AI to hallucinate; how are you guarding against this?

Since the goal is to enhance communications and access to TerraLex resources, myLexi is set up as a closed system and is trained only on the resources and information that we’ve directed. myLexi does not reach out to the broader internet or outside resources to obtain answers. This virtually eliminates incidences of hallucinations. If there are times when myLexi provides an insufficient response due to a misunderstanding or other reason, we can make that correction immediately in the back end. We have a dashboard that allows us to monitor all inquiries and responses so we can continually refine myLexi as we go. When people post questions they can give a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ to the response, which provides another way we can monitor the responses myLexi is providing and make refinements if needed. 

How do you envisage myLexi developing in the future?

We hope that in the future we will add other aspects to myLexi. For example, we are working on developing a licensing model that would allow our member firms to incorporate myLexi onto their own websites to bring the power of the knowledge and insights from TerraLex’s resources to an even broader audience. We are also considering if there are ways to partner with companies to have sponsored content on related issues that are of interest to our members.