More than eight in 10 in-house legal departments globally are unable to measure the return on their AI investments even as all legal teams say they plan to increase spending on AI tools, according to a survey from alternative legal services provider Axiom.
The 2026 Axiom In-House Legal AI Report found that 83% of corporate legal departments can’t measure whether AI spending is working, despite 100% of respondents saying they intend to increase their AI budgets to some degree.
For those that are measuring ROI, 67% are tracking error reduction metrics, followed by internal labour cost reductions (56%) and hours saved per task (51%). Another 46% said they are tracking reduced outside counsel spend.
Legal teams perceive legal research as the area delivering the most AI ROI (57%), with contract drafting review and analysis next on 19%. Some 16% also say they perceive AI ROI in document summarisation, suggesting ROI perceptions are more skewed towards AI handling document-intensive, high-volume work, Axiom says.
Perceptions of AI ROI are likely to be influenced by how skilled legal teams are when using AI. Those who say they have advanced skills were more likely to say ROI significantly exceeds expectations compared to those with basic or beginner skills who are more likely to say ROI is only meeting expectations.
Just 10% of respondents said their teams boast advanced AI skills, with 24% saying their team’s skill levels are basic and 59% saying they have intermediate level skills.
With that AI skills gap in mind, many legal teams are starting to offer a broad range of AI training programmes. Just over half (51%) say they are both offering tool-specific certification programmes and ongoing skills development. Another 47% say they are offering training around AI ethics and responsible use.
However, nine in 10 respondents said they only received 10 hours or less of AI training over the past year, equivalent to roughly one working day.
Given those factors, many legal teams would approach AI adoption differently if they were to start their plans from scratch, with 37% of respondents saying they would establish better measurement practices from the start and 36% saying they would build internal expertise first before deploying the technology.
The report was based on a survey of 528 in-house legal leaders in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
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