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Microsoft Copilot is specifically targeting lawyers as well now with the launch of new capabilities that they state are for \u2018legal, finance, and compliance professionals\u2019. A few days ago, Anthropic announced Claude would be available in Word \u2013 with lawyers also as its key audience, creating competition with legal AI tools.<\/p>\n
With regard to the new capabilities in Copilot, Microsoft states that \u2018whether reviewing contracts or\u00a0finalizing\u00a0policy documents, Copilot can 1776243007 track changes when an audit trail is needed. This release supports the way professionals work, where document integrity is non-negotiable\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Plus, when it comes to the demo video and screenshots, what example do they choose? They chose making a Due Diligence Report, with a focus on risk. So, yep, this is very much all about lawyers and their work once again \u2013 with of course, clear applications to the finance realm as well. <\/p>\n
The new offering will be available via Work IQ, but for now only through its Frontier program on the Office Insiders Beta Channel. A Mac version is expected later, they said.<\/p>\n
So, what will it do? As noted, although they mention finance, when you look at the details of the offering then lawyers who use AI tools already will immediately feel at home.<\/p>\n
They state: \u2018Every feature below is native to Word, respects your formatting, and preserves your collaboration history. New features available today include:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Track Changes with word-level precision.\u00a0With Copilot in Word, changes are visible by default, and now it is easy to\u00a0turn\u00a0track changes\u00a0on from Copilot, so edits are always transparent, auditable, and granular.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Contextual comments.\u00a0Add, read, reply to, and manage comment threads anchored to the correct text with Copilot, keeping collaboration context intact.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Table of Contents.\u00a0Insert and update tables of content using Word\u2019s built-in heading types. Structure stays\u00a0accurate\u00a0as the document evolves.\u2019<\/p>\n
And you can also:<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0\u2018Revise with precision.\u00a0Turn on Track Changes and tighten the Executive Summary. Clarify any vague words and spell out acronyms but\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0rewrite whole sentences unless necessary.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0Flag items for review.\u00a0In the Risk Factors section, flag anything\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0unclear and add comments where we need Finance validation or legal\u00a0sign-off\u00a0based on what came up in last week\u2019s review meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0Format for readability.\u00a0Create a table of content, then add a header with the document title and today\u2019s\u00a0date, and\u00a0add page numbers to the footer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
4.\u00a0Review pending changes.\u00a0Go through all unresolved tracked changes and comments and create a short \u2018Review Summary\u2019 section at the top that captures (1) proposed changes in the document and (2) open questions from comments.\u2019<\/p>\n
And note the \u2018Risk Factors section\u2019 designed to help with \u2018legal sign-off\u2019. They could not be more explicit in their intentions here. <\/p>\n
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\u2013<\/p>\n
On one level you could say, \u2018Well, I have Copilot already\u2026.\u2019 But, the key thing here is that they\u2019ve added these extra Word capabilities that work directly with Copilot. Also, it\u2019s understood that these days Copilot is not just working via OpenAI\u2019s LLMs, but it has also tapped what Anthropic is offering. For example, Microsoft already provides a direct link to Claude Cowork, see here:<\/p>\n
\u2018Working closely with Anthropic, we have integrated the technology behind Claude Cowork into Microsoft 365 Copilot. It is this multi-model advantage that makes Copilot different. Your work is not limited by one brand of models. Copilot hosts the best innovation from across the industry and chooses the right model for the job regardless of who built it. This is a pattern of work that will only become more powerful as new models and ways of working emerge.\u2019<\/p>\n
Is this a big deal?<\/p>\n
In a nutshell what this does is make it easier to stay in Word and Copilot. And that\u2019s a big deal, because legal tech wants you to go to their product, or at least use their plugin.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t need to do that, if Copilot is tapping LLMs usefully inside Word and you get all the usual track changes, plus added aspects such as the \u2018Risk Factors\u2019 section, then some lawyers will just stay where they are.<\/p>\n
For now, this is on limited release. But it will get noticed. It also comes at the same time that Claude is now available inside Word. And the funny thing here is that they actually announced this new Copilot offering on April 8th, but the Claude news totally overshadowed it.<\/p>\n
Lawyers now have plenty of choices:<\/p>\n
Legal tech tools with their own environment, <\/p>\n
Legal tech tools with plugins to Word<\/p>\n
Claude in Word<\/p>\n
and an improved Copilot and Word experience.<\/p>\n
And all of these possibilities are \u2013 to a greater or lesser degree \u2013 operating off the same foundational LLMs. <\/p>\n
In short, more competition between multiple pathways to the result you want: a reviewed document. And we can bet that there is more to come. <\/p>\n
P.S. one last thing: is this the result of the Robin AI team that joined Microsoft a few months ago?<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
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A Legal Tech Conference For All of Europe<\/p>\n
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