Jeffrey Gifford is a lawyer in San Antonio who specializes in corporate governance, securities and M&A at the law firm Dykema. In the moments before virtual meetings begin, he doubles as a bouncer.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the meeting even starts,\u201d he told DealBook, \u201cwhen I see that A.I. note taker pop up, I\u2019ll just say: \u2018Hey, Mike, Jim, Barbara, I see the A.I. note taker popped up. I\u2019m going to turn it off and kick it out of the meeting.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
This happens more and more. \u201cEverybody and their mother is using these things,\u201d Gifford said. \u201cExecutives are using them, boards are using them, nonexecutive businesspeople are using them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Productivity powered by artificial intelligence is all the rage. Skipping meetings and sending an A.I. note taker instead has been called \u201cthe latest office power move<\/a>.\u201d Wallet-size recorders that use A.I. to log live interactions have become a product category<\/a>. And at least one C.E.O. has endorsed the idea of adding an A.I. board member<\/a>. (Maybe one programmed to behave like Warren Buffett<\/a>?)<\/p>\n But to lawyers like Gifford, inviting an A.I. bot to meetings introduces a ticking time bomb of legal risk.<\/p>\n A.I.-generated transcripts, which some video call apps allow users to turn on by default, preserve all sorts of things \u2014 offhand comments, quickly corrected statements, jokes \u2014 that humans would rarely write in the meeting minutes. And they show up in meetings that would otherwise not be recorded.<\/p>\n In a lawsuit or an investigation, that can make every word uttered discoverable.<\/p>\n Even worse, say corporate lawyers: Sharing the meeting with an A.I. bot may void attorney-client privilege, making conversations that would not otherwise be subject to discovery fair game in a lawsuit.<\/p>\n Bot in the meeting<\/p>\n The New York City Bar Association issued a formal opinion<\/a> on A.I. note takers last year, urging lawyers to \u201cconsider whether recording, transcribing and summarizing is tactically well advised in the particular circumstances\u201d and to advise clients using such tools \u201cof the disadvantages of doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n One concern is accuracy. An A.I. transcript could, for example, record \u201cdoes matter\u201d as \u201cdoesn\u2019t matter.\u201d If that sentence comes up in court years later, the mistake may be difficult to remember.<\/p>\n Corporate lawyers also worry about A.I. note takers\u2019 lack of context and discretion. For example, recording every word of a board meeting, no matter how tangential the remark, could be legally perilous.<\/p>\n \u201cYou want to make sure that the minutes, if they get into a courtroom, are going to not only be accurate but also are going to have the emphasis that the board would like,\u201d said Doug Raymond, a partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath.<\/p>\n Worst-case scenarios are endless and easy to imagine. An executive talking through an acquisition may exaggerate, saying it would help the company \u201cdominate\u201d the category \u2014 a comment that could come up in an antitrust case. Or a board member could offhandedly acknowledge a risk that shareholders could later point to in a lawsuit.<\/p>\n \u201cTypically, private litigation asks for all documents and communications related to a particular topic, so it\u2019s not so much that a litigant needs to specifically ask for it,\u201d said Christoffer Lee, a lawyer who focuses on corporate investigations and white-collar defense at the law firm Pillsbury.<\/p>\n Eventually, he expects to see more sophisticated litigants and government regulators ask specifically for these types of transcriptions.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re just having to potentially address extraneous stuff that you otherwise wouldn\u2019t have,\u201d Gifford said.<\/p>\n Voiding privilege<\/p>\n Executives and corporate boards generally expect conversations with their legal team about legal matters to have attorney-client privilege. They lose that protection if they share the same information with outside parties \u2014 and it\u2019s possible that an A.I. note taker could have the same effect.<\/p>\n Companies that make such tools, the argument goes, may have access to the transcripts and data related to them.<\/p>\n While courts have not directly addressed the issue, they\u2019ve considered parallel questions.<\/p>\n In February, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the transcripts generated with the Claude A.I. app when a defendant asked it for legal advice were not protected by attorney-client privilege. The judge wrote that the defendant could have no expectation of privacy when using a model trained on user inputs that made explicit disclaimers in its privacy policy about its ability to share with third parties (including with \u201cgovernmental regulatory authorities\u201d).<\/p>\n Judge Gershwin A. Drain of Federal District Court in Detroit took a different approach. He ruled, also in February, that a plaintiff who effectively represented herself in court could not be compelled to turn over her ChatGPT transcripts about the case. The judge rejected the argument that using ChatGPT was the same as disclosing to a third party.<\/p>\n Lee said these cases could be seen as analogous to the question of whether A.I.-generated notes from a legal meeting are protected by attorney-client privilege. \u201cA.I. note-taking represents the next frontier,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As word of the risk spreads, Raymond said, his clients, especially public companies, have largely heeded the warnings: \u201cInitially, I was seeing and hearing about it a lot, like: \u2018Oh, this is great. Now I don\u2019t have to worry about writing my corporate minutes.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think people have realized pretty quickly that it\u2019s a bad idea. And so if they\u2019ve gotten the word, they\u2019re not doing it \u2014 or if they\u2019re doing it, they\u2019re not fessing up.\u201d<\/p>\n IN CASE YOU MISSED IT<\/p>\n A panel of federal judges appeared to put new limits on President Trump\u2019s trade powers. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump\u2019s 10 percent tariff on most U.S. imports, which he imposed after the Supreme Court struck down a previous set of tariffs, was also illegal<\/a>. While the decision directly blocked the collection of tariffs from only the plaintiffs in the case, it could open the door for others to sue and weaken the president\u2019s negotiating position at a summit with Xi Jinping, China\u2019s leader, next week.<\/p>\n Job creation remained solid in April. Employers added 115,000 jobs<\/a> last month, and the unemployment rate remained 4.3 percent. It was the second consecutive month of strong job growth after a stretch of slow hiring. Economists will be watching to see if the impact of high gas prices will temper the labor market\u2019s momentum.<\/p>\n The White House considered more oversight for A.I. In a shift from its previously stance, the Trump administration is discussing a working group for government officials and industry leaders to discuss potential oversight procedures<\/a>, which may include government vetting of new A.I. models. Google, Microsoft and Elon Musk\u2019s xAI agreed to let a government agency<\/a> examine their new models before they are released publicly.<\/p>\n Elon Musk and OpenAI faced off in court. Musk is suing OpenAI and Microsoft, OpenAI\u2019s biggest investor, for $150 billion over claims that Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, defrauded him when Altman changed OpenAI from a nonprofit to for-profit company. Musk has been trying to make the case about human extinction<\/a>, while OpenAI has sought to paint him as an unreliable narrator. Altman and Microsoft\u2019s C.E.O., Satya Nadella, are set to take the stand in the next two weeks.<\/p>\n More big deals: Kalshi hit a $22 billion valuation<\/a>. Samsung Electronics reached a $1 trillion valuation<\/a>. And GameStop wants to buy eBay for about $56 billion<\/a>. ABC accused the Trump administration of violating its free speech rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n A reporter tests A.I. for everyday life <\/p>\n