The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has announced that a “robo-lawyer” is going to be used to in its fight against economic crime.
A pilot robot was recently used to scan for legal professional privilege content in a case involving Rolls-Royce, working at speeds 2,000 times faster than a human.
A new artificial intelligence-powered system called Axcelerate is now being rolled out alongside the robot to allow SFO teams to work more efficiently.
Previously only independent barristers were used to comb through thousands of complex documents to identify evidence.
The new technology will be used this month on a case involving over 50million documents requiring review.
SFO’s Chief Technology Officer, Ben Denison said: “AI technology will help us to work smarter, faster and more effectively investigate and prosecute economic crime.
“Using innovative technology like this is no longer optional – it is essential given the volume of material we are dealing with and will help ensure we can continue to meet our disclosure obligations and deliver justice sooner, at significantly lower cost.
“The amount of data handled by our digital forensics team has quadrupled in the last year and that trend is continuing upwards as company data grows ever larger.”