A Reddit post last week has sparked a storm of speculation in the legal industry about the long-term prospects of legal AI companies. Harveysome consider it a simple ChatGPT wrapper. But does this criticism miss the point?
Ken Crutchfield
In his latest column for LawNextLegal and technology strategy consultant Ken Crutchfield says Harvey’s critics miss the big picture. Harvey isn’t competing just on product features, he says, he’s playing an entirely different game, much like Oracle did in the relational database wars of the 1980s.
From securing prestigious referral accounts to raising money from high-profile investors, Harvey has gained advantages that go far beyond its AI capabilities.
The best product doesn’t always win, Crutchfield says. Oracle wasn’t the best relational database, but it understood something its competitors didn’t when it came to winning the market.
Crutchfield is director of Preview advice and has been an executive at LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and most recently Wolters Kluwer, where he was vice president and general manager of legal markets for Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US.
Read his full analysis on LawNext to find out the five things Harvey does well and why his strategy might be just what it takes to win in legal AI.
