Thomson Reuters, a global content and technology company, announced updates on its multi-year global investment strategy in generative artificial intelligence (AI). These include integrating generative AI skills through product development and acquisitions, leveraging strategic partnerships, and ensuring that its global workforce is upskilled on AI. The strategy update coincides with generative AI enhancements to its flagship product, Westlaw Precision, that will be available to U.S. customers on Nov. 15.
“AI will revolutionize and transform the future of work for professionals across the globe. Thomson Reuters is at the forefront of the AI movement, and we have demonstrated our commitment through the annual investment of more than $100 million in AI,” said Steve Hasker, president and CEO, Thomson Reuters. “Professionals have our unwavering commitment and support as they safely navigate the opportunities and challenges provided by the evolving AI landscape. This is an exciting time as the Thomson Reuters team plans to expand, scale, and upskill at pace.”
Building AI-Powered Capabilities
Following the synergistic acquisition in August 2023, Thomson Reuters is committed to integrating Casetext with its proprietary solutions. Taking a “best of” approach across product development, Thomson Reuters will leverage Casetext to accelerate time to market, blend content with workflows, and expand beyond legal research to provide meaningful benefits to customers across its segments.
Enhancing its flagship product, Thomson Reuters is set to make a new generative AI skill available in Westlaw Precision later this month. Using the new skill named Westlaw Precision AI-Assisted Research, customers will be able to ask complex questions in conversational language and quickly receive synthesized answers. Leveraging innovation from CoCounsel, the new skill will draw from Thomson Reuters industry-leading, trusted content from across statutes, cases, and regulations to quickly resolve queries that used to take hours.
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In addition, Practical Law customers will be able to benefit from generative AI in a new chat-type interface. Using the new Practical Law Answers, users will be able to submit queries in conversational language and quickly receive answers validated by trusted content created by more than 650 legal experts.
Generative AI skills in Practical Law Dynamic Tool Set are currently in beta and will be available to customers in the United States in January 2024. Find more information here.
“Our entire approach to generative AI starts with our customers, and the solutions we’re announcing bring together our strongest assets – our leadership in AI, our trusted content, and human expertise. Research that previously took hours can now be delivered in minutes, removing uncertainty, and delivering accurate outcomes, enabling our customers to focus their time where their expertise matters most,” said David Wong, chief product officer, Thomson Reuters.
Strategic Acquisitions: Thomson Reuters continues to build on its strategy of pursuing acquisitions to accelerate generative AI capabilities. In August, the company completed its acquisition of Casetext, a company that uses advanced AI and machine learning to build technology for legal professionals. Through the integration of CoCounsel, its key product, Thomson Reuters will continue working to accelerate breakthroughs in generative AI, driving greater productivity, impact, and efficiency for legal customers.
To deliver value for tax professionals, Thomson Reuters completed its acquisition of SurePrep earlier in the year. SurePrep leverages AI and a consumer-grade, mobile-friendly design to help U.S. accounting firms bolster productivity and profitability. Integrating this acquisition also furthers the company’s efforts to offer seamless, cloud-based workflow solutions to the professionals it serves.
Partnering for Success: As part of Thomson Reuters Ventures, an enterprise technology venture capital fund, the company recently invested in Neo.Tax. Integrated with ONESOURCE Income Tax, Neo.Tax uses AI to apply tax rules and requirements to claim research and development (R&D) expenses, avoiding a manual process that can take companies hundreds of hours, if not months, to complete. This is in addition to Truewind, which leverages generative AI to automate bookkeeping and financial modelling to empower small and mid-size businesses.
An additional collaboration includes Thomson Reuters working with Microsoft on a contract drafting solution for Microsoft 365 Copilot for Word. The plugin will help professionals unlock the potential of generative AI with legal content from Thomson Reuters products, easily surfacing content within Microsoft Word for faster initial drafting, and allowing users to use their expertise to edit, validate, and build the final document with integrated access to Thomson Reuters knowledge, content, and AI technology.