John Savva, Partner in Sullivan & Cromwell’s Palto Alto office, spoke with Bloomberg Law about S&C’s collaboration with OpenAI to develop the Firm’s Agreement Analyzer tool.
John, who led the project, developed the initial version of the AI-powered contract analysis tool before OpenAI’s engineers helped to further refine it and develop it into an application that could be broadly deployed at S&C. The tool reviews agreements through multiple automated cycles to identify issues, compare language against Firm and client negotiating playbooks, and develop a proposed set of revisions for lawyer review.
“Working with OpenAI gave us access to top-tier AI engineering talent that significantly facilitated the development of our tool,” John said. He explained that the main short-term benefit of the technology is enabling lawyers to perform a more thorough analysis within the time available, “rather than necessarily cutting time out.”
John also discussed how firms should approach AI tools as the technology evolves. “The types of tools that will make sense will vary by task,” he said, “and probably over time as models improve, the types of tasks that will require a bespoke approach will change. Firms will need to stay flexible.”
The Agreement Analyzer was developed for internal use at S&C. It was demonstrated on September 17 at OpenAI’s first legal industry summit in New York.
Read the Bloomberg Law article: Sullivan & Cromwell’s OpenAI Gambit Delivers Tech Talent Access
Learn more about the tool: Sullivan & Cromwell Announces Custom Tool Built in Collaboration with OpenAI | Sullivan & Cromwell LLP