Microsoft Copilot Tops ILTA’s 2026 Tech Survey; Legal AI Vendors Trail in Adoption

# Overview

# Which products law firms use When firms were asked which tools they are using or exploring, Microsoft 365 Copilot leads by a wide margin at 76% usage. Behind Copilot, three products cluster in a close range: Thomson Reuters CoCounsel (44%), Anthropic's Claude (44%), and Harvey (43%). Other tools with notable presence include Lexis+AI (26%), ChatGPT Enterprise (22%), iManage (22%), Litera One (17%), and Legora (16%).

# Deployment versus piloting A distinction between usage and full deployment matters. Only two tools report full deployment by at least half of firms' lawyers: Microsoft Copilot (52%) and Westlaw Advantage (50%). The survey's naming convention creates some ambiguity: the Copilot leading deployment is listed as "Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat)," which appears to reference the free Windows-included version, not Microsoft 365 Copilot. The survey also separately lists "Microsoft Copilot for Windows."

Piloting activity identifies where firms are actively testing new capabilities. The most piloted products include iManage AI Enrichment (91%) and Ask iManage (80%). Other widely piloted or tested tools: Claude (68%), Litera One / Lito (64%), NetDocuments' ndMAX App Builder (58%), Clio's Vincent AI (56%), ChatGPT (55%), Legora (51%), and Laurel (51%).

# Primary use cases Top uses of gen AI fall in the 73–79% range across firms. These are practical, high-volume tasks: creating initial document drafts, producing meeting notes and summaries, conducting legal research, and summarizing or analyzing long or complex documents. These uses align with workflow points where time savings are immediate and measurable.

# Security concerns Security remains a central worry. For the first time, generative AI appears on ILTA's tracked security-challenge list and immediately ranks second—above malware, compliance, and legacy threats—behind user behavior. That elevates governance, access control, and user training as priorities for IT and risk teams.

# Survey scope and respondent mix The survey spans strategy, emerging technologies, practice management, business applications, document processing, collaboration, infrastructure, hardware, operating systems, and security. Respondent firm-size breakdown: 27% under 50 lawyers, 33% 50–149, 18% 150–349, 10% 350–699, and 12% 700+.

# Practical implications for firms

• Expect strong default reliance on Microsoft's Copilot family across firm sizes, but verify which Copilot version is in use.

• Address gen AI in security planning now—IT teams must combine technical safeguards with user policies and training.
• Evaluate vendors on how they integrate with existing practice tools (document systems, research platforms, matter management) rather than on marketing presence alone.

# Next steps for readers If you are evaluating AI for a firm, map current workflows to the survey's high-use cases, confirm deployment details for any Copilot offering you consider, and prioritize pilot governance and security controls in tandem with pilots.