The penultimate talk of the 2026 Legal Tech Talk event saw Kendra Voogdt (Practice Technology Manager, White & Case) host Andie Garford-Tull (GC AI Transformation & Governance, Dentsu), Jess McMinn (Innovation Advisor, Norton Rose Fulbright), Miyu Lee (Chief Legal Officer, Mondu Inc) and Zeliha Onder (Head of Legal & Compliance, Koctas).

The panel kicked off with the question around have you seen any changes to your function?

Andie Garford-Tull- The key structural change has been moving from a centralised approach to a local one.  AI regulation is fragmented and the philosophy is different on a regional level.  You have to therefore give local teams the power to make volume decisions against their local regulatory backdrop.

Zeliha Onder- In retail it is a balance to deal with consumers.  We have to help vendors to navigate the different regulations.

How do you navigate Regulation vs Innovation?

Jess McMinn- We have to know what is out there for our clients by looking at horizon scanning.  We have to bring the technology to compliance teams instead of the other way around- there is a balance to be had.

Miyu Lee- Within financial technology there is very heavy regulation and as a result we have to be backwards looking and think what can we now look to incorporate.  We do also have to look at the horizon scanning piece as well.  We build compliance for agility and flexibility.

Andie Garford-Tull- At the start, anything that looked like an agent had to go through a committee but we have now carved out single step tasks and we can circumvent approval through committee.  The perceived highest risks are still locked down but we are now constantly reviewing our trigger threshold.

The panel agreed that the real risk lies with trying to solve everything.  There must be a short term, mid term and long term plan and decision making process.

Lasting advice from the panelists included:

• You will fail so be comfortable with it
• Build it in a modular nature