How will we be consuming insight and commentary in the next two or three years? With AI it’s hardly going to be the same.

Look at the history of the net, something that advanced much slower than AI is advancing.

Twenty plus years ago no one was reading online. Law firms told me it was nuts to think they would be sharing their insight on this thing coming called the Web – unless people paid for their publishing. And of course professional editors would be needed before any of their commentary was released. I was told no one would view anything lawyers published online as credible.

I was standing at an event on Pier 62 in Seattle one evening and talking to someone who worked at Amazon who told me they were ready to release a digital book reader, something called a kindle. I thought it amazing, and being in Seattle to watch Amazon, I did think it would take off. Others thought it a little crazy, just as they thought the whole concept of Amazon was crazy.

I rode the ferry with an editor from the Seattle Times who acknowledged they were screwed based on the growth of digital news. I am a fan of journalism and news reporting and believed newspapers would survive. I was wrong – though they survived in the form of a much smaller digital footprint.

Look at what we have experienced over the last couple decades in the change of the delivery of news, insight and commentary — plus realize that people are more apt to get their news and information from social media than digital mainstream media.

My point is the world is totally different than 20 years ago. I have to believe, with AI, it is going to be totally different in five years, probably less.

Yes, legal professionals will share insight and commentary, but will it be solely on their website, blog or content distribution service?

• With AI having the ability to structure and assimilate a huge amount of information and deliver it in ways that are most effect for you.
• With new mediums integrated into knowledge sources or integrated into solutions helping us learn and do our work.
• Think document and pleading preparation being used with AI solutions that incorporate primary and secondary law (including insight from legal professionals) as guidance.
• Think of consumers and small business people going to solutions and having a conversation with a source that is based in part on the insight of the most helpful and skilled lawyers — and learning enough to know why they needed a lawyer and who they may want to use.

Don’t I want my insight and commentary there, where it is being used and seen in the flow of work, versus solely at “my places” expecting people to come to me to read, something that will be considered an annoyance, when others have their insight and commentary structured and integrated by AI into the daily flow of others? Where am I most relevant? Where can I be cited?

I don’t know about all this. I am just looking at history. But I believe the means by which we consume insight and commentary is changing dramatically.

AI is having a faster and more meaningful impact than the Web and the Internet. And the impact to society may be very positive here — access to greater legal insight and commentary for the profession and the public.