Bengo4.com Launches BUSINESS LAWYERS LIBRARY AI Assistant (Beta Version), an AI-powered Book Search Service for Corporate Legal Affairs
— Lightening the research workload in corporate legal affairs —
Press Release
BUSINESS LAWYERS
Bengo4.com, Inc. (Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director, President and CEO: Taichiro Motoe; hereafter “the Company”) is pleased to announce that it will launch the BUSINESS LAWYERS LIBRARY AI Assistant (beta version), an AI-powered book search service for corporate legal affairs, from December 13, 2023.
URL of explainer video: https://youtu.be/xcHdeXsyitA
■ What is the BUSINESS LAWYERS LIBRARY AI Assistant (Beta Version)?
This is the corporate legal affairs version of the Bengoshi.com LIBRARY AI Assistant, an AI-powered book search service for lawyers that received an advanced launch in September.
Key features of the service are AI (GPT-4) powered text search for legal books and a summary function. Specifically, when a user asks a question in the form of a phrase, the AI is able to understand not only the keywords but also the phrase itself and can find and display pages in books that are relevant even though they do not contain the keywords. The AI also automatically generates a summary with reference to multiple books.
■ The state of research in corporate legal affairs
Today, with social structures changing an accompanying laws being developed at an increasingly rapid rate, corporate legal affairs involves dealing with a wide range of legal consultations. The information sources for legal research have also increased dramatically to keep up with this demand. As a result, the task of summarizing the issues at hand and searching for relevant books and literature requires a great deal of time.
According to research conducted by the Company, of 414 corporate legal affairs personnel polled, at least 70% responded that they spend “up to one hour a day” or “between one and three hours a day” on legal research. In addition, at least 70% of those polled reported that they spend either “up to 30 minutes” or “up to one hour” per research assignment. These results have made it clear that between roughly 10% and 30% of daily corporate legal affairs working hours are spent on research.
■ Effects of the BUSINESS LAWYERS LIBRARY AI Assistant (Beta Version) - Feedback from trial users
- By using this AI assistant, the time spend on research has been shortened by around 50%, and it has been a great help. In addition, the answers given by the AI have offered new perspectives, making it possible to pursue avenues of research we wouldn’t previously have noticed. Thanks to this service, we have been able to expand the scope of research and gain more in-depth knowledge.
- Being able to perform searches phrased as questions rather than simply searching based on keywords has made it possible to find more specific information efficiently. Streamlining this research allows us to acquire a large amount of information in a short time, and I feel it has also helped improve the quality of the results output.
■ Schematic diagram showing system linkage
The service is a system that combines the BUSINESS LAWYERS LIBRARY search engine with Microsoft Corporation’s Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform.
■ Regarding use of the service
The service is a feature available exclusively to BUSINESS LAWYERS LIBRARY subscribers. Details of BUSINESS LAWYERS LIBRARY: https://services.businesslawyers.jp/lib/about/
■ What is the BUSINESS LAWYERS LIBRARY®︎?
The BUSINESS LAWYERS LIBRARY® is a subscription-based legal research service providing access to one of Japan’s largest collections of legal books and journals. The service was released in 2020 to lighten the research workload for corporate legal affairs departments. Due to more widespread remote working and the need “to access lawbooks both when working in the office and at home,” the service is used by staff at more than 1,400 companies, mainly large companies, as of July 2023. Under the “Light” subscription plan, users can view over 1,700 legal journals and legal books, and perform cross-searches of them. As of December 2023, 28 major legal publishers take part in the service. With the highest level subscription plan, users can attend multiple paid seminars held each month at no extra cost.
- Contact for inquiries
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Corporate Communications, Bengo4.com, Inc.
Kurosaki Bldg. 4-1-4 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 106-0032
TEL +81-3-5549-2555 E-Mail info-press@bengo4.com