2.1 The AI Assistants We Evaluated
We tested 6 different AI tools that fall into 3 broad categories: legal AI assistants, productivity AI assistants and general-purpose AI chatbots (together, the AI Assistants). [3]
Legal AI Assistants
GC AI
GC AI is a legal AI assistant designed specifically for in-house counsel, offering a comprehensive suite of assistants to streamline legal workflows and take a multi-model approach. It provides polished first drafts, counseling documents, and real-time legal guidance with citations and web search capabilities. For this evaluation, we accessed GC AI through a free trial.
Vecflow's Oliver
Oliver is an AI-powered legal assistant developed by Vecflow and tailored for legal work. It integrates with existing knowledge bases and external data sources to enhance legal research and analysis. For this evaluation, we accessed Oliver through a free trial.
Productivity AI Assistants
Google's NotebookLM
Google NotebookLM, powered by Google's Gemini, is an AI-powered assistant that allows users to upload documents and ask questions about them. It acts as a virtual research notebook, summarizing facts from uploaded sources and explaining complex ideas. For this evaluation, we accessed the free online version of NotebookLM.
Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot (Copilot), powered by OpenAI's GPTs, is a general-purpose AI assistant integrated into the Microsoft Office suite. It uses powerful large language models to help users draft documents, analyze content, and answer questions based on their files and communications. For this evaluation, we used the free web version of Copilot.
General-Purpose LLM Chatbots
DeepSeek
DeepSeek is a general-purpose LLM that offers a free, private AI interaction experience without requiring registration or storing user data. It supports all languages and provides an interface for tasks like semantic search and content generation. For this evaluation, we accessed the free online version of the DeepSeek-V3 model.
OpenAI's ChatGPT
OpenAI's ChatGPT, powered by GPT models, is a general AI assistant with broad capabilities in content generation and question answering. For this evaluation, we used the paid subscription to ensure unlimited access to the full GPT-4o model.
[3] Luminance, Robin AI, and Wordsmith are legal AI assistants that provided demos but did not participate in this phase of the evaluation. We also reached out to Spellbook (another legal AI assistant), but they currently only offer free trials to “active law firms and in-house legal teams.”