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ILTA survey: 76% of law firms use Copilot; Harvey and Claude tie near 44%

ILTA's 2026 survey of 508 law firms puts Microsoft 365 Copilot far ahead of specialist legal AI, a check for legal teams before buying a second tool.

WrenAI editor
· 3 min read
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Microsoft 365 Copilot is the generative AI product most law firms use or are exploring, at 76% of firms, according to the 2026 technology survey of the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), a membership body for law-firm technology staff, as [LawSites reported](https://www.lawnext.com/2026/09/which-ai-product-is-most-popular-among-law-firms-findings-of-iltas-tech-survey-may-surprise-you.html) on 14 September 2026. Thomson Reuters CoCounsel (44%), Anthropic's Claude (44%) and Harvey (43%) are level in second place.

The survey covered 508 ILTA member firms in a dozen countries, with 140,000 lawyers between them. 94% said they use or are exploring generative AI tools, up from 80% a year earlier, a rise of 14 points.

Specialist legal tools are a big-firm purchase

  • All firms: Microsoft 365 Copilot 76%, CoCounsel 44%, Claude 44%, Harvey 43%, Lexis+ AI 26%, ChatGPT Enterprise 22%, iManage 22%, Litera One 17%, Legora 16%.
  • Firms with fewer than 50 lawyers (137 firms): Copilot 59%, Claude 42%, CoCounsel 40%, Harvey 22%, Legora 6%.
  • Firms with 700 or more lawyers (59 firms): Copilot 88%, Harvey 84%, Claude 64%, Legora 47%, CoCounsel 43%.

A general assistant, Claude, sits level with the two best-known legal products across all firms and ahead of one of them at the largest. The jobs firms put AI on are mostly general ones: first drafts of documents, meeting notes and summaries, legal research, and summarising or analysing long documents were each named by 73% to 79% of firms.

Using is not the same as rolled out

Only two AI products have been fully deployed to lawyers at half or more of the firms: Microsoft Copilot (52%) and Westlaw Advantage (50%). LawSites notes that the Copilot in that question is labelled "Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat)", which appears to be the free version, not the paid Microsoft 365 Copilot, and that the survey's product names do not match Microsoft's own. Read the Copilot figures as reach, not paid seats.

In testing or pilot, nine products were named by more than half of firms: iManage AI Enrichment (91%), Ask iManage (80%), Claude (68%), Litera One (64%), NetDocuments' ndMAX App Builder (58%), Clio's Vincent AI (56%), ChatGPT (55%), Legora (51%) and Laurel (51%). The two leaders come from iManage, which sells document management, the system where a firm keeps its files.

Generative AI is now the second-biggest security worry

Asked for their three biggest security challenges, firms put generative AI second, behind user behaviour, in the first year it appeared on the list. The executive summary, quoted by LawSites, says it outranked "malware, compliance, and every legacy threat except user behavior".

What the survey cannot show

  • "Using or exploring" counts a firm with one trial licence the same as a firm-wide rollout. LawSites reports no figure for seats, daily use, hours saved or errors.
  • No prices. LawSites gives no cost per lawyer for any product.
  • The respondents are ILTA member firms, and 60% of them (306 of 508) have fewer than 150 lawyers. It is a survey of law firms; in-house legal departments are not in it.
  • The people side is absent as reported: nothing on who checks AI drafts, or on changes to associate and paralegal work.
  • In-house buying can look different. Microsoft's own legal and compliance organisation, about 2,000 people, will use Harvey, [LawSites reported](https://www.lawnext.com/2026/07/microsofts-own-legal-department-will-use-harvey-as-the-two-companies-deepen-their-alliance.html) on 23 July 2026; no results have been published.

What to do if you run legal operations

  • Before buying or renewing a specialist legal AI tool, list the jobs your team would use it for and mark which are drafting, summarising and notes that a Copilot or Claude licence you already hold can do. Ask the specialist vendor to demonstrate the jobs that are left.
  • Ask your document management vendor what AI is already included in your contract: the two most-piloted products in the survey come from one.
  • Ask your IT lead who owns generative AI as a security risk, and which tools lawyers may put client documents into. Get the answer in writing before the next pilot starts.
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76% of the 508 law firms in ILTA's 2026 technology survey use or are exploring Microsoft 365 Copilot, against 44% for CoCounsel and Claude and 43% for Harvey, and firms rank generative AI as their second-biggest security challenge, LawSites reported on 14 September 2026. Before paying for a specialist legal AI tool, list which jobs an existing Copilot or Claude licence already covers.

Questions to ask

  1. Which of our drafting, summarising and research jobs can the general assistant we already license do, and which need a legal database or our document store?
  2. What does the specialist tool cost per lawyer per year, and is there a minimum number of seats?
  3. What AI features are already included in our document management contract?
  4. Which tools may lawyers put client documents into, and who in IT signs that off?
  5. Who reviews an AI-drafted document before it leaves the team, and how is that recorded?

The arithmetic

share of firms using or exploring generative AI this year − share last year; share of large firms using a tool − share of small firms using it

ILTA's figures as LawSites reports them: 94% − 80% = 14 percentage points in a year. For Harvey, 84% of firms with 700 or more lawyers − 22% of firms with fewer than 50 = 62 points; for Copilot, 88% − 59% = 29 points. The survey as reported gives no seat counts or prices, so the shares cannot be turned into spend.

Questions this article answers

Which AI tool do most law firms use?

Microsoft 365 Copilot, named by 76% of the 508 firms in ILTA's 2026 technology survey as a tool they use or are exploring, LawSites reported on 14 September 2026. CoCounsel and Claude follow at 44% each and Harvey at 43%.

How many law firms use generative AI in 2026?

94% of firms in ILTA's 2026 technology survey said they use or are exploring generative AI tools, up from 80% in 2025, according to LawSites. The figure counts trials as well as full rollouts.

Do small law firms use Harvey?

Less often than large ones. In ILTA's 2026 survey, 22% of firms with fewer than 50 lawyers use or are exploring Harvey, against 84% of firms with 700 or more lawyers, LawSites reported.

Is generative AI a security risk for law firms?

Firms rank it that way. Generative AI was the second most-cited security challenge in ILTA's 2026 survey, behind user behaviour, in its first year on the list, according to LawSites.

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