Published in Law360
Law firms should prepare for the continuing seismic shift in the digital landscape. In its August “Future of Professionals Report,” Thomson Reuters reported that 32% of law firm respondents said “their firms are moving too slowly on [artificial intelligence] adoption.” While firms focused on AI initiatives tend to look for integrations for internal legal work, they should also consider the shift that is occurring in how people search for answers and receive AI-backed results. By 2026, Gartner Inc. predicts that traditional search engine volume will drop by 25%, and AI chatbots will replace many traditional search queries. Google’s AI Overviews have dramatically expanded to appear in over 50% of all Google searches, up from 18% in March of this year. Even more striking, 65% of Google searches now end without a click to another website — the so-called zero-click phenomenon that’s fundamentally changing how clients and prospects discover and evaluate legal expertise.
Ioana Good, Adrien Maines, and Nancy Myrland collaborate with Law360 to explain:
“While fewer people visit a firm’s website, AI systems are crediting attorneys as the authoritative source for legal insights across millions of queries.”
The key insight? Success is no longer about driving traffic—it’s about becoming so valuable that AI systems can’t provide comprehensive legal answers without citing your expertise.
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