This article appeared in Accounting and Financial Planning for Law Firms, an ALM/Law Journal Newsletters publication covering all financial aspects of managing law firms, including: building a law firm budget; rates and rate arrangements with clients; coordinating benefits for law firm partners; and the newest strategies to grow your firm and your career.

Remember when AI was the stuff of science fiction? With the release of OpenAI's GPT-3 and GPT-4 and other AI generative systems into the consumer market in late 2022, artificial intelligence became an accessible tool that can be applied in almost every computer environment. UBS, the global financial services company, reported that GPT-3 and GPT-4 reached 100 million active monthly users only two months after its release, making it the fastest growing internet app in history.

AI systems began to be integrated into commonly used information storage systems years ago. But when corporate service providers applied AI technology to solve industrial problems, its presence seemed purely benign. Now, as AI tools become available to the general public, the prospect of people "being replaced" by an AI application seems more threatening.