Transcript
so one of the big challenges that I see
the problem statement really is what I
like to call the M&A or investment
transparency gap One of the biggest
challenges that I encountered in my
career and with a lot of the business
people that I work with is that when
you're inhouse and you're doing a lot of
deal making whether that's mergers and
acquisitions private equity venture
investments early stage investments uh
you know corporate M&A what have you the
amount of
documentation is just never ending right
and so what ends up happening is that
everything compounds with time Every
deal has so much going on and all of
these different documents Every single
one of them impacts the other document
So in order to get information on what
somebody might think is a simple
question like I don't know what are my
board rights or what's the waterfall
preference how much money am I going to
get if this company gets sold someone
has to go through so many documents with
a fine tooth comb to get that answer And
relying on external counsel is important
that you still need those lawyers but a
lot of the times like we just want the
answers right now and we need that
information ASAP at our fingertips And
so the challenge is that while AI has
finally gotten to the point where it's
really able to help in these ways
because it can look things up it can
summarize information etc I have not
been able to find any other products on
the market that really looks at this
specific problem and really understands
how complicated it is to go ahead and
look at all these documents to come
together and really really give you that
information and story So the value of
Ericore as we call it it's sort of like
the deal brain that you can have inside
of your team It can help with portfolio
maintenance It can help with due
diligence It can help with answering
simple questions It can help with
understanding the story and insights on
a particular investment deal And it's
just it's just like a second look right
it's you're getting a second opinion in
no time at all And there's no harm in
getting that second opinion And a lot of
times there's a lot of benefit in
getting
So I think that AI is going to shift the
legal industry in massive and tremendous
ways in so many ways right it's going to
start first of all really with legal
education I think that the way that law
schools teach law is going to have to
change fundamentally because the skills
and the expectations on lawyers when
they graduate law school in order to
make them marketable it's going to
change It's not going to be the same old
you know sort of expectation that law
school is is conceptual and then you
learn how to do things in a big law firm
because I don't think that clients are
going to want to pay for those junior
associates you know hundreds of dollars
per hour for them to be learning So it's
going to be a big question How do you
incorporate that into education how do
you upskill the next generation of
lawyers i think the next thing is really
for in-house legal teams The question is
going to be you know a lot of in-house
lawyers traditionally always were very
frustrated that it's it's always the
external partners in big law firms who
are like they're the business people
right they're the they're the trusted
adviserss and the in-house legal is more
like a coordinator just you know getting
things done making sure that things get
signed checking on deadlines I think
that can change tremendously And I
actually think that it should because I
think that when you're an in-house
attorney you have a front seat to the
action You know things that documents
are just never going to provide that
information on You know the
personalities You know the history You
know the context So the ability now to
bring a lot more of that strategic work
inhouse because you have technologies
that can you know help uh augment these
processes I think is something really
really exciting and something that a lot
of in-house attorneys should really
think
about So I think the first thing with
successful adoption is this So I can
just tell you my own experience right so
just to kind of step back a little bit
and and explain a little bit about
myself So I'm chief legal officer of
Constructure Group I oversee a venture
fund a technology company a family
office and lots of businesses in between
I have a team of seven people who report
to me worldwide And I manage all of our
outside law firm relationships as well
which is sort of a multi-million dollar
annual budget because of all of the
different things that we're doing So I
sort of sit you know I sit at the eye of
the storm And the first thing that I
really did with Ericore was I used my
legal team as a testing ground And I
told my legal team that in addition to
everything else right it's not just
because I I want to I want to use you as
my guinea pigs for using Ericore for for
my own sake which she did but a big part
of it also is I said I want all of you
to become AI
masters I want everybody who works for
me to have an AI first mentality And
that actually goes past my legal team
because you know now that I'm also CEO
of a tech company marketing human
resources finance I push everyone to
learn these things And I find that in
the beginning there's always an uphill
battle There's always a struggle because
there are AI tools out there You know
you can use chat GPT or whatever and
it's just like fun right you can do fun
things and and but when it comes to real
business and work lawyers especially
there's a lot of push back there because
they'll say listen I'm so busy as it is
and I don't have time for another thing
right and lawyers are not particularly
techsavvy and we don't use a lot of
software tools cuz we're so busy or
they'll say well I can't really do what
I do or it wasn't 100%
accurate and I'm like okay but once you
learn how to use it once you understand
its value how it can work with you etc
First of all you'll understand not to be
afraid of it and think that oh my gosh
am I going to lose my job is it going to
replace me but you're going to learn how
to you know exponentially increase your
value and scale yourself because of it
And so the big thing for me is just
constant training right constant
education around AI I sent Corsera links
and and other types of links even to my
team we now want to start creating our
own forces because I think we've become
just such masters at using AI and and
building it and also understanding its
limits And so just the big thing is I I
think you need to to make it fun and you
really need to push anyone in any team
that they they need to start adopting
this because otherwise they're going to
get replaced by you know people who do
know how to use those things
So I think that the top skills are this
right First of all I think it's the
ability to understand
prompting Some people prompting is
really uh intuitive So I have some
people who work for me who are like why
do we have to take prompting classes
like this is so easy What's the problem
but you know for other people not so
much And so really understanding and and
that's actually in a way it's funny
because it's it's like learning how to
communicate because you have to learn
like how do you explain something how do
you get the things that you need out of
it etc I think that that's really a key
skill and I think that that's a skill
that can translate to any industry right
is just learning and understanding
prompting I think learning and
understanding um you know the nature of
large language models and what they are
and how they work and how they don't
work also so that you know when not to
trust them I think is incredibly
important You don't want you don't want
employees who are lazy who are just like
oh I'll just let the AI do this and then
that's it cuz those are the ones who
make the most mistakes and they come up
with really stupid responses So you need
people who are really understanding like
how do you engage with this how do you
get the right uh the maximum output out
of the input i think another really
really big thing to learn about and
upskill about for anybody is data
privacy and compliance I think that
that's a huge one You know I GDPR
obviously is is for Europe but frankly
GDPR touches upon everyone and
everything because because we live in a
globalized world and uh security and
data privacy is really paramount now in
understanding also when you work in a
professional setting what's appropriate
for putting into AI tools how can you do
it etc And I think that that's also
really important in terms of
understanding certain things because I
think that when people don't
understand they do something even
funnier which is that then they won't
use any AI tools at work right they'll
restrict everything cuz they're like
"It's not safe It's not secure." But
then they're on their phones secretly
like picking everything up right and
think about it Think about the amount of
leakage and privacy leakage So actually
what you want is you don't want people
who behave that way who you know you
want people who actually take a middle
road approach and who have really
educated themselves to be able to
understand how do I interact with these
things in a safe and secure manner
[Music]
Yeah I mean I think there's lots of care
like I think it's going to change
everybody's
jobs Seriously everything everything is
going to be a different career path I
mean I think that talking about my my
area right with lawyers for example you
know it's it's going to be about being
an engineering architect of of how do
you train AI tools to draft contracts
how do you do this how do you set the
rules right so maybe you're not going to
be the one who's manually sitting there
and drafting the contracts anymore but
who's who's teaching the AI right so
think about that in many different
industries it's going to be the same
thing is is understanding kind of how to
be an engineer in in that field I think
that that will change jobs So I think a
lot of jobs are going to get removed but
they'll be replaced with new AI focused
jobs I think that that will be a really
really big one and again that's why I
think it's really important to
understand what's coming down the
pipeline I think that you know humans
are traditionally not really good at
predicting the future Like if you take a
look I was just talking about this with
yesterday with my brother If you take a
look at the last hundred years of books
cinema television all the sci-fi what's
the one thing that's missing from what's
the one thing that no one
predicted this Nobody predicted this
Nobody predicted that when you see the
you know apocalyptic future everyone
walks around like this Right Right And
so that we missed it you know in in like
'8s '8s futuristic movies everybody goes
into some cool phone booth or something
but like nobody's on their cell phone So
we don't really know what AI is going to
do to us and how it's going to change
things but it's clear it's going to
change things Sure So I think I think
every industry will be transformed and
and the important thing is just to get
ahead of it
[Music]
Yeah I mean well first of all so I have
to tell you with regard to
certifications because this is such a
new field right i think that you know
there there's just so many new
opportunities for new types of
certifications new types of education
that are coming out So I know that that
you do a lot of a lot of those So there
are a lot of things I'd be really
interested to see where is the person
learning you know who is teaching them
how are they learning about it That's
really exciting There's lots of new
things anybody who's really just taking
the extra time and the extra the extra
steps you know to go that distance to to
learn more and to study more that's
something that would definitely pay
attention to and and be interested in to
really understand I think it's really
important to me also to see what kinds
of courses you know people are taking
and how that translates to the specific
position and role that they want But
again because it permeates every single
industry I'd be looking at it at you
know every step of the game I mean like
I said if my company we're AI first
mentality And I'll tell you that the
market is changing so fast So here's
just an example right and going back to
like certifications and courses and
education I was a professor at a law
school in the United States and I taught
law and technology
So I taught one course this semester and
two years ago I taught this course and I
asked the students who here uses chat
GPT or any generative AI tools Nobody
raised their hand And the very first
homework assignment that I gave them was
to download it and to use it and come
back and tell me what was their
experience Right feels good Imagine now
2 years later if I were to ask any
classroom that question Who wouldn't
raise their hand that's how fast the
world is
changing And so right now there are so
many new courses There's so many new
interesting things And I think a lot of
this is really
um it's uh everything builds upon
everything else right there there are
certain really really really complex
concepts when you get into certain areas
of AI and there's all these subsets of
AI and there's all the questions of how
these things plug into each other Most
people don't even need to get to that
level right but just just even
understanding the basics If someone
tells me like "Oh yeah I don't like if
somebody works you know in a
communications role and they've never
used an AI tool to store all the memory
and figure out their voice and speed
themselves up and they're sitting and
they're actually like writing this stuff
by themselves and they're not using it
to be able to produce 10 times faster
than before I wouldn't want to hire that
person