Legal Innovation Summit 2025
The Legal Innovation Summit 2025, hosted in Johannesburg by CatalyNT in partnership with Financial Mail and Business Day, opened with a keynote from Professor Richard Susskind, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the future of law and technology.
Speaking virtually, Susskind challenged Africa’s legal and business leaders to reimagine how legal services are delivered in a digital age. He framed his remarks around six themes: the mindset required to think about the future, technology trends reshaping society, six hypotheses on the trajectory of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”), the impact on the legal profession, the emergence of AI-enabled organisations, and lessons from other industries.
Rethinking Mindset
Susskind opened with a favourite story from Black & Decker’s training programme for new executives. Trainees are shown a picture of a power drill and asked: “This is what we sell, isn’t it?” The obvious answer is yes. But then came the next slide: not a drill, but a neatly drilled hole. “This,” the trainer said, “is what customers really want.” The lesson is simple but profound: people don’t want tools, they want outcomes.
In law, it is no different. Clients do not want legal documents or hourly bills; they want disputes resolved, peace of mind, and deals completed. And in a digital world, those outcomes can increasingly be delivered in new ways. “The challenge for lawyers is not how to digitise existing work, but how to deliver outcomes in new ways,” he argued. The mindset shift is clear: stop focusing on the “drill” and start focusing on the “hole.”
What’s Different About Technology Today?
Susskind stressed that this mindset is urgent now because today’s technological environment is fundamentally different, shaped by four factors:
- Systems are remarkably capable. Tasks once thought to require human judgment, such as analysis, drafting, and even strategic advice, are now being handled by machines.
- There is no finish line. Global investment in AI continues at unprecedented speed.
- Exponential growth. Computing power, access to data, and AI capability are doubling at astonishing rates.
- Compounding breakthroughs. Each generation of AI is used to build the next, creating rapid cycles of improvement.
He also drew a crucial distinction between automation (digitising existing processes) and innovation (creating entirely new service models). Most legal tech to date, he said, has been about automation. However, AI is now unlocking true innovation, enabling services that were previously unthinkable.
Six Possible Futures for AI
Looking ahead, Susskind outlined six possible futures for AI: the “AI bubble,” generative AI becoming reliable, the rise of artificial general intelligence, the emergence of superintelligence, the singularity, and an evolutionary path in which humanity’s greatest “contribution” is building systems that eventually surpass us.
The point is not to predict which of these will come true, but to prepare for profound change.
Implications for Law
In the short term, AI will improve efficiency in legal research, drafting, and case analysis. In the longer term, it will reshape the very way legal services are delivered. “The real question is not what the future of lawyers will be, but how people will solve the problems for which lawyers are today the answer,” he emphasised.
That may mean AI platforms, digital assistants, or compliance tools embedded in businesses. Competing with machines on tasks alone is a dead end; the opportunity lies in re-imagining service models entirely.
Closing with an analogy, he recalled asking neurosurgeons to stop thinking about the “future of neurosurgeons” and instead ask: “How will we solve the problems for which neurosurgeons are today the answer?” Lawyers, he said, must ask the same of their profession. For him, the answer is clear: artificial intelligence will be central.
Professor Susskind’s keynote set the tone for a day that balanced global perspectives with African innovation. It reinforced the urgency for legal professionals to embrace technology not only as a tool for efficiency, but as a catalyst for transformation.
By Professor Richard Susskind CBE KC (Hon)
