A growing number corporate legal departments, including those at large pharmaceutical companies, are bringing artificial intelligence-powered contract review and analytics technology in-house to streamline much of their contracting work.

But one pharmaceutical executive is betting that the use of such technology still has yet to fully take off in the corporate world. And he's moving to AI contract review provider Seal Software to prove it.

Dave Pasirstein, who was the director of the in-house tech incubator lab Horizon 3 at pharmaceutical company Merck, has joined Seal as its new vice president of pharma, life sciences and health care.

Legaltech News caught up with Pasirstein to discuss why he moved to the legal technology space, the type of work he did at Merck's incubator, and why he thinks contract technology will find a welcome home in this former industry.

Legaltech News: What kind of work did you do at Horizon 3?

Dave Pasirstein: The Horizon 3 organization provided readiness to positively disrupt Merck's business and business models by applying technology practices in new and novel ways. Basically, we were exploring various types of disrupters, and there were many we looked at.

To give you some real examples, two emerging technologies that I say are applicable to Seal and the legal tech space were specifically AI and blockchain. With AI, we had found unique applications for research and manufacturing. For blockchain, there were multiple use cases we explored and experimented with, from supply chain management to the application of smart contracts and validation of documents.

What disruptive emerging technology do you believe will have the most impact on legal?

Well, I would say that while blockchain will undoubtedly be disruptive in the legal space, the technology itself is still rapidly evolving and changing, making it difficult for businesses to adopt it as it matures.

Therefore, I believe AI, specifically narrow machine learning applied to various language nuances and ambiguity in contracts, agreements, regulations, documents, emails and other types of content in general, will continue to have the greatest disruptive impact in the legal space.

Why leave Merck for Seal?

Well, I was inspired by Seal's co-founders when they talked about the platform, the company they created, and, more importantly, the vision for the company's future. It's a rapidly growing company with some outstanding existing technology and a vision that, if we're all executing on all cylinders, can really change the legal tech space.

What will you be working on at Seal?

In joining Seal, my initial goal is to extend Seal's established platform capabilities further into the pharmaceutical life science and health care space.

How receptive are legal departments in the pharmaceutical, life sciences and health care space to AI contract review tools?

For general counsel in this space doing procurement, legal operations and M&A, there is a positive reception [to AI contract technology]. What I hope is to be able to extend the technology into spaces where today there is still significant manual effort, which includes contracts and agreements in the clinical trial, regulatory, collaborative research spaces.