Generative AI offers remarkable opportunities for law firms to revolutionize the traditional pillars of marketing: transforming attorney branding and client communications, introducing innovative pricing strategies, and enhancing work with data-driven insights. 

In this session at CMO Series Live 2025, Micheal Best's Chief AI Officer, Sarah Alt, shares how to differentiate your firm in a world where everyone has access to the same technology.

Key takeaways include:

Responsible use of AI in practising law and operating a firm
Sarah emphasized the ongoing need for human supervision and responsible management of AI as its capabilities expand, saying “We still have the responsibility to supervise, we still have the responsibility to make sure that as more and more data and as more and more opportunities are made available to artificial intelligence that we understand how to do that responsibly”. 

While there are now cases of clients explicitly encouraging law firms to “use AI tools for us in a way that respects the ethical rules - ABA ethical rules and obligations”, attorneys are expected to not only understand how technology works and be able to explain it, but also determine if said technology should be used for a particular client because it would be a better way to represent or to serve that client. 

Innovative pricing strategies that incorporate the use of AI
Clients are directly requesting fee adjustments, putting pressure on firms to adapt their pricing due to AI, and Sarah suggested that leveraging existing data could be a solution to this: "Use the data and come up with more of a validation conversation instead of an absolute conversation of building from the ground up. There are ways to do that, and we are sitting on mountains of data to be able to do that".

But ultimately, “Do not sell time anymore. You need to start selling outcomes” was the main takeaway, presenting a fundamental shift required for law firms in the AI era.

How to differentiate your firm when we all have access to the same LLMs to get the job done
Sarah ended with a message on the importance of human capabilities: “We all basically have access to the same technology as law firms... so we've got to focus on being great at those human skills - and that's how we're going to differentiate either ourselves or our firms”. 

A key framework for strategic thinking is to determine "What can be automated by AI what can be augmented by AI and what is human only". This helps firms identify where to focus their unique human talent.