By Francesca Yardley – Chief Operating Officer at Threads
One of the most interesting conversations I had at last week’s Legal Practice Management event wasn’t about what artificial intelligence can do. It was about why people choose not to use it. Here we talk more about AI adoption in law firms and how the secret may lie in invisible technology.
Several delegates commented that introducing new technology remains one of the biggest challenges facing law firms, even when the benefits appear obvious. The discussion quickly moved away from artificial intelligence itself and towards a more fundamental question: what makes professionals embrace one technology while quietly ignoring another?
The answer has surprisingly little to do with technical ability. Lawyers are rarely resistant to technology itself. They are resistant to unnecessary disruption.
Productivity depends on established routines
Legal professionals spend years refining the way they manage their workload. They develop routines that enable them to balance client expectations, billing targets, regulatory obligations and administrative tasks, often under significant time pressure. These routines become second nature because they reduce cognitive effort and allow lawyers to focus on providing legal advice rather than managing technology.
Introducing a new application inevitably interrupts those routines. Even relatively small changes, such as requiring an additional login, asking users to upload files manually or expecting them to switch between multiple systems during a client conversation, introduce friction. Although each additional step may appear insignificant in isolation, together they represent a meaningful increase in administrative effort.
This helps explain why many technology projects fail despite offering clear theoretical benefits. The issue is not that users doubt the value of the software; rather, they perceive the effort required to adopt it as outweighing the immediate benefit. In professions where every additional minute may reduce billable time, even modest increases in administrative workload can become significant barriers to adoption.
Successful technology works quietly in the background
The technologies that become indispensable are rarely those with the longest list of features. They are the ones that remove effort without demanding new ways of working. Few people think about email search or automatic spell checking because both have become part of the natural workflow.
The same principle applies to AI. Lawyers should not have to remember to upload recordings, switch between multiple applications or complete additional administrative tasks simply to benefit from automation. Instead, AI should fit around existing systems and processes, capturing information automatically and presenting it where users already expect to find it.
This is why integration matters. The more a solution works with existing telephony, email and practice management systems, the less disruption it causes and the more likely it is to become part of everyday practice. The most successful technology is often the technology users barely notice because it simply becomes part of the way they already work.
AI should reduce administration rather than create it
Call notes provide a good example. Most solicitors recognise the importance of maintaining accurate records of client conversations, both for effective case management and for regulatory purposes. However, producing those records frequently requires lawyers to divide their attention during conversations, write detailed notes afterwards or dictate summaries from memory once the call has finished. Each approach consumes valuable time and introduces opportunities for omissions or inaccuracies.
Modern AI transcription removes much of this burden by creating a detailed record of the conversation automatically. Rather than changing the way lawyers conduct client calls, it allows them to concentrate fully on the discussion, knowing that a transcript and summary will be available shortly afterwards. The technology supports the existing objective of maintaining comprehensive records without requiring lawyers to adopt a fundamentally different way of working.
This distinction is important because successful AI is rarely about asking professionals to do something new. Its greatest value comes from quietly removing administrative work that was previously accepted as unavoidable, allowing lawyers to spend more time advising clients and less time documenting conversations.
Designing technology around people
For many years, organisations introduced new software and expected employees to adapt their behaviour accordingly. Increasingly, successful technology does the opposite. It is designed around existing habits, requiring little training and minimal behavioural change.
Ultimately, firms are unlikely to realise the greatest value from AI adoption simply by choosing the most advanced technology. Success depends on implementing tools that reduce effort while fitting naturally into the way people already work. When AI becomes almost invisible, adoption follows naturally because users experience the benefits without feeling they have been asked to change the way they practise.
At Threads, this philosophy underpins our approach to AI call transcription. Rather than asking lawyers to change the way they communicate with clients, Threads integrates with existing phone systems to capture, transcribe and securely store conversations automatically. The result is a searchable, shareable record that supports collaboration and compliance without introducing additional administrative work for fee earners.