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In medieval times, when invaders came calling, the kings and queens didn’t rely on luck, hope or the weather. They built defences. Not for show, or in the hope that English Heritage might one day open the castle up for school children to admire. They built them to survive. Thick stone walls, cunning traps with boiling oil and guards who could spot trouble before it reached the outer perimeter.

But the clever ones built moats. A wide, murky, unwelcoming stretch of water. Not just to keep threats out, but to buy time, discourage attack and make their castle less attractive to the average marauder wanting to do a spot of pillaging.

In-house legal teams, take note. AI is today’s battlefield and without a shift in mindset, you’re guarding the castle gate with nothing more than a clipboard and a wagging finger.

Over the past year, the general legal response to AI has been cautious. Manage the risk. Contain the tool. Draft the policy. That instinct is understandable. No GC wants their chatbot to make headlines. But while legal’s been dancing around the edges, the rest of the business has picked up a lance and started charging.

The leading companies aren’t holding back. They’re asking how to turn AI into strategic advantage. In that shift, legal’s role doesn’t diminish. It grows. But only if it leads.

Legal has to stop reacting and start shaping

Too often, legal arrives at the tail end of the AI sprint. The work’s done, the marketing’s ready, and the excitement has outrun protocol. The ask is usually the same… review the model, check the language, polish the policy. In other words: rubber-stamp what’s already done.

But AI is no longer an experiment. It’s reshaping operations across every function. It’s embedding itself in workflows and changing decision-making.

That pace creates friction. Product wants speed. Compliance seeks caution. Strategy dreams big. And legal? Legal plays referee, whistle in hand, but drowned out by the noise.

This perception of legal as the bureaucracy isn’t just unfair and unflattering. It’s outdated.

Legal holds a rare vantage point. It sees risk across functions. It understands the scrutiny of regulators. It knows how seemingly minor missteps can become headline stories. More importantly, it knows how to turn principles like fairness, transparency and accountability into real-world controls.

That’s not red tape. That’s the structure that makes innovation sustainable.

Governance is the advantage

The myth that technology alone creates an edge is over. Everyone’s using the same base AI models - GPTs, Claude, Mistral, Llama, APIs. The real differentiator isn’t flashiness. It’s trust.

In that world, governance is your moat.

Not a dusty PDF updated once a year. Not a line in a press release. But governance that is lived and serves a purpose beyond legal. It offers a clarity you can show a board, bias controls that withstand scrutiny and oversight that’s been stress-tested before it’s needed.

That’s what sets Lexis+ AI apart. Built around , it considers real-world impact, respects privacy and embeds human oversight. That reduces unfair bias and makes the logic behind the tools explainable.

Utilising tools like Lexis+ AI shows how legal departments can lead, not follow. They enable legal to give guidance at speed, giving counsel more space to consider solutions and ideas.

That matters, especially when investors or regulators start asking how decisions are made.

Those who prepare now won’t scramble later. They’ll have answers at the ready. Those who don’t? They’ll be patching the castle walls while the battering ram rolls in.

Decision-making has changed

The traditional centres of legal influence – the courtrooms, contracts and compliance training (training that, no matter how interactive you make, the business will still hate) still matter. But they’re no longer where the pivotal moments happen.

Now, it’s in design meetings with engineers, tooling decisions with procurement and strategy sessions with data scientists. It’s happening in rooms where legal isn’t present... yet.

From what I’ve seen, the most forward-looking GCs are already moving. They’re embedding legal into day-to-day decisions.  Not as observers, but as co-creators. They’re designing adaptable governance frameworks. Training cross-functional teams to speak the same language of AI risk. Making sure legal isn’t the only voice raising the red flag when the lines blur.

This isn’t about learning to code. It’s about defining how the business competes and survives in a world of probabilities and fine margins for error.

It’s about claiming your seat at the table, or building your own table if needed.

For GCs still raising the drawbridge…

You’ve done your job holding the line. But your next chapter won’t be judged on how well you blocked the arrows. It’ll be judged on what you built while the bridge was still up.

Your board doesn’t need you to slow AI down. It needs you to make it safe - faster than your competitors can.

That’s not a burden. That’s your strategic edge.

You can spot the risks before they hit. Build the defences before the attack. You can be the one who saw what was coming and didn’t wait to be asked.

Your moat is waiting.

Start digging.