Organizations may be exploring the benefits of outsourcing some of their legal needs, but that doesn't mean that in-house billing teams still aren't open to receiving a technological assist now and again. To this end, Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions announced Tuesday it has launched a new LegalVIEW BillAnalyzer Data Service that pivots AI and data analytics capabilities toward that very demographic.

The solution is a spinoff of the company's LegalVIEW BillAnalyzer, which launched in 2017 and applies AI, machine learning and a Wolters Kluwer review team toward the problem of invoice management. Per Wolters Kluwer, the amount of legal spend moving through BillAnalyzer's Expert Service has increased by sixfold since 2018, and the Data Service is an attempt to bridge a potential missing link in the chain: Organizations with their own billing review teams on staff who still want to make use of Wolters Kluwer's AI technology.

In other words, just because many companies may be outsourcing their legal billing efforts, it doesn't mean that everyone else is doing the same.

"We do see kind of the mix. We do see folks kind of starting to fill out their teams internally and as they do that we're happy to have that conversation with them of, 'Hey, this is a service that we offer as well," said Jeffrey Solomon, senior director of product management at Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions.

But what exactly does AI bring to the billing review process? Solomon framed it as an alternative to keyword searches and the pitfalls that can result for an organization attempting to comply with billing guidelines. Terms can occupy the dual extremes of being either too narrow or too broad, and either one can put a damper on efficiency. Backed by a robust database of legal spend performance data, Wolters Kluwer's AI is intended to facilitate a more targeted search.

Still, building the Data Service wasn't as simple as splitting the AI capabilities off of BillAnalyzer Expert Service. In order to make the solution user-friendly for billing personnel who don't necessarily have a deep background in artificial intelligence, the way that certain outputs and results were presented had to be retooled.

"Really where a lot of the work went in was around the customization of things like reading code so we can really present things back to the customer not in an AI tech-sounding way, but in a way that highlights 'this is specifically what [billing] guidelines it's violating and this is why,'" Solomon said.

To be sure, Wolters Kluwer isn't the only company with a foot in legal billing as consumer demand for related technologies continues going strong. Companies such as Thompson Reuters and Orion also carry offerings related to e-billing or financial management. However, while AI may be a powerful tool in that kit, it does create a potential barrier of entry to new providers who don't have the large data set required to power it.

Solomon believes that they will begin to see more direct competitors emerge in the AI billing arena soon.

"AI is a pretty fast-moving technology and we're pretty pleased that we were able to get a three or four-year head start on most of our competitors," Solomon said.