I recently interviewed Scott Steinberg, a leading business strategist, bestselling author of "Think Like a Futurist; Make Change Work for You," and President and CEO of BIZDEV: The International Association for Business Development and Strategic Partnerships™, about what the future of work looks like for in-house counsel, including the impact of AI and how to effectively horizon scan for your business in a rapidly changing environment. Scott and I will be addressing these topics and many more at General Counsel East on Oct. 2-3 at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn, NY. If you would like to attend the event, you can register here. We hope to see you there!

Heather Nevitt, Editor in Chief of Corporate Counsel: Every GC I speak to is bringing up generative AI – both around efficiency and risk. How do you see it impacting the legal profession?

Scott Steinberg: Artificial intelligence will have a seismic impact on operations, especially in terms of its ability to automate repetitive tasks, streamline routine processes, standardize data sources, etc. Think of its potential to fast-track research, fill out template forms, and automate workflows alone. Likewise, imagine the technology's time-saving prospects given that current chatbot (artificial software personality) solutions can already answer 80-90% of queries in some cases accurately – and surveys show that some clients find their customer service capabilities to be better than that offered by skilled professionals. And that's before we consider the prospect of AI agents – artificial intelligence routines smart enough to process a series of tasks in sequence without human prompting, as if they were personal assistants. Or the widespread arrival of enterprise-grade or custom AI trained on your own data and machine learning-powered APIs (essentially, pieces of software that let you quickly and easily add features and functions to other pieces of software) and smart plug-and-play add-ons. Or, for that matter, intelligent online tools that can help you put 100% customized offers and tailored sales pitches in front of clients on your website or mobile app on the fly depending on their needs and interests.