Artificial Intelligence

AI is reshaping how businesses operate, compete, develop products, manage workforces, and serve customers. Companies are adopting AI across their operations, embedding it in products and services, investing in AI technologies, and deploying increasingly sophisticated agents and automated workflows.

For general counsel and in-house legal departments, the challenge is to enable innovation while managing the legal, regulatory, commercial, and operational risks of AI. From governing and building AI to buying, deploying, protecting, transacting around, and defending it, legal teams need counsel that connects emerging technology to business priorities.

Morgan Lewis is building integrated, market-leading AI capabilities across our practices to be the go-to law firm for general counsel and in-house legal departments navigating the opportunities, risks, and transformation created by AI. We combine legal and regulatory experience, practical knowledge of AI technologies, and firsthand experience deploying AI within our own firm to help clients adopt AI responsibly, manage emerging risks, and rethink how their legal functions operate and deliver value.

Our advice spans AI strategy and governance, regulatory compliance, technology transactions, product development, data and knowledge governance, workforce transformation, intellectual property, M&A, privacy and cybersecurity, competition, trade compliance, insurance, and disputes.

We address AI as an enterprise-wide strategic priority—not a standalone legal issue—and help clients turn legal insight into practical action.

Our Integrated AI Approach

Govern It. Build It. Buy It. Deploy It. Protect It. Transact Around It. Defend It.

AI does not fit within one area of law. Neither does our approach.

 Our integrated team of lawyers and knowledge management professionals draws on regulatory and compliance, data and knowledge governance, intellectual property, labor and employment, corporate and M&A, capital markets, technology transactions, privacy and cybersecurity, antitrust, trade compliance, insurance, and litigation experience.

We advise from early strategy and experimentation through deployment, commercialization, transactions, regulatory scrutiny, and disputes, helping clients identify issues earlier, move forward confidently, and build controls that evolve with the technology.

Our AI Capabilities

Enterprise AI Readiness & Governance

As organizations move from AI experimentation to enterprise adoption, they need governance that supports innovation and meaningful oversight. We work with boards, general counsel, legal departments, technology teams, and business leaders to design practical AI governance frameworks.

Our capabilities include:

• AI governance frameworks and operating models
• AI steering committees and governance structures
• Enterprise AI policies and acceptable-use standards
• Approval and escalation processes
• Third-party and vendor governance
• Data analytics and information governance
• Knowledge management
• Prompt, output, logging, retention, and audit-trail governance
• Human oversight and review protocols
• Training and education
• Monitoring and auditing
• Incident response
• Board and management reporting
• Collaborations with compliance teams

We turn AI principles into operational policies, decision-making structures, and controls that can evolve with technology and regulation.

AI Regulations

AI regulation is evolving across jurisdictions, creating overlapping obligations for developers, providers, and deployers. We identify applicable requirements and help clients translate them into scalable compliance programs. Our work includes global regulatory mapping, cross-border data and AI governance, investigations, and enforcement. We focus on putting requirements into practice through policies, controls, documentation, training, and monitoring.

Trade Compliance & Supply Chain

AI development and deployment raise complex trade, technology-transfer, sourcing, and supply-chain issues. We advise on export controls, sanctions, cross-border data and technology transfers, advanced-computing and semiconductor restrictions, technology sourcing, third-party risk, AI infrastructure, contractual allocation of risk, and changing access requirements.

In-House Legal Department AI Transformation

We aim to be a trusted AI partner to general counsel and in-house legal departments, not only on legal risk, but on transforming the legal function itself. Our own work evaluating, piloting, governing, and deploying AI gives us firsthand insight into the questions legal departments face:

• Where should we start?
• Which use cases create the greatest value?
• What policies and guardrails do we need?
• How should we select and pilot solutions?
• What data can the technology access?
• How do we protect confidential and privileged information?
• How do we measure success?
• And how do we move from experimentation to responsible adoption at scale?

We pair that firsthand experience with multidisciplinary legal capabilities to guide legal departments from strategy and governance through piloting, deployment, and scale.

We help legal departments with:

• Strategy & Readiness – Setting priorities, assessing readiness, identifying valuable use cases, and building an AI roadmap tied to legal department goals.
• Policies & Governance – Establishing policies, risk classifications, approval and escalation processes, acceptable-use standards, and human oversight.
• Use Cases & Pilots – Selecting legal use cases, structuring pilots, setting evaluation criteria and guardrails, and planning broader deployment.
• Technology & Vendor Selection – Evaluating platforms and vendors and addressing contracts, privacy, security, IP, data-use rights, and regulation.
• Data & Knowledge Governance – Protecting confidentiality and privilege while governing access, permissions, retention, knowledge repositories, prompts, outputs, and audit trails.
• Workflow & Agent Design – Designing AI-enabled legal workflows and agents with clear controls, escalation points, and human review.
• Risk & Compliance – Integrating privacy, cybersecurity, IP, regulatory, employment, ethical, and litigation considerations into adoption.
• Adoption & Change – Training legal teams, promoting responsible use, and embedding AI into daily workflows.
• Measurement & Scale – Defining success metrics, monitoring performance and risk, applying pilot lessons, and governing enterprise rollout.

Our goal is not simply to help legal departments adopt a tool or draft a policy. We help them build the governance, data foundations, workflows, and operating models to use AI effectively, responsibly, and at scale.

Drawing on our own AI journey and our legal, regulatory, technology, data, and risk capabilities, we help general counsel move from policy to pilot, from pilot to deployment, and from deployment to measurable value.

AI & Workforce Considerations

AI is changing how employers recruit, manage talent, evaluate performance, and organize work. We advise across the employment lifecycle and on the broader workforce implications of AI-driven change.

Our work includes advising on AI in hiring and screening, automated employment decisions, bias and discrimination, employee monitoring and privacy, performance management, employee use of generative AI, policies and training, confidential information, labor relations and works councils, workforce restructuring, and AI-related employment disputes and investigations.

AI Product Readiness & Governance

Embedding AI in products and services introduces legal and regulatory issues from design and development through testing, launch, and monitoring. We work with legal, product, engineering, privacy, compliance, and business teams to address risks early.

Our work includes product risk assessments, regulatory classification, privacy-by-design and AI-by-design, training data and rights, IP and open source, vendor diligence, transparency, testing and validation, human oversight, bias, consumer protection, safety, cybersecurity, contractual risk allocation, post-launch monitoring, and dispute readiness.

AI Build, Implement & Operate

Generative and agentic AI are evolving from assistive tools into systems that execute complex workflows and interact with other technologies. We advise on developing, procuring, implementing, and operating AI-enabled workflows and agents, including:

• AI and agentic workflow development and implementation
• AI platform and model-provider agreements
• Licensing and cloud arrangements
• Development and implementation agreements
• AI-enabled outsourcing
• Data-use and training rights
• Model and output ownership
• Confidentiality and security
• Accuracy and performance
• Human-in-the-loop requirements
• Allocation of responsibility for autonomous actions
• Third-party tools, APIs, and data
• Commercial and pricing models
• Indemnification and limitation of liability
• Audit and transparency rights
• Regulatory change
• Exit, transition, and portability

Protection of IP Assets

AI creates new intellectual property while challenging established concepts of ownership, inventorship, authorship, licensing, and protection. We help clients protect, commercialize, and defend the IP and proprietary information supporting their AI strategies.

Our work includes AI patent strategy, patentability and inventorship, copyright and AI-generated content, trademarks, training-data rights, trade secrets and confidentiality, licensing and open source, employee and contractor inventions, ownership of inputs and outputs, freedom to operate, IP diligence, and disputes.

M&A, Investments & Capital Markets

AI is reshaping M&A transactions, private equity and venture investment, strategic collaborations, financing, capital markets, and public company compliance and disclosure requirements. Buyers, sellers, and investors must assess AI as both a source of value and a distinct set of legal, regulatory, and operational risks.

We advise on AI-related acquisitions and investments, joint ventures, strategic collaborations, financing, AI diligence, IP and data rights, privacy and cybersecurity, governance, workforce issues, contractual liabilities, open-source and third-party models, antitrust, transaction documents, integration, disclosures, and capital markets considerations.

Risk Mitigation & Disputes

As AI adoption grows, so do regulatory scrutiny, investigations, and disputes. We help clients anticipate and mitigate exposure, respond to enforcement, and manage litigation and other high-stakes matters.

Our work includes regulatory investigations, class actions, privacy and cybersecurity disputes, IP litigation, employment claims, product liability, commercial disputes, AI evidence and discovery, preservation of prompts and logs, antitrust and algorithmic pricing, automated decision-making claims, internal investigations, crisis management, and insurance.

AI Across Industries

AI creates different legal, regulatory, and commercial challenges across industries. Effective advice must reflect the business and regulatory context in which AI is developed and used. Our multidisciplinary AI lawyers work with industry-focused teams to deliver advice grounded in clients’ operations, market conditions, and regulatory obligations.

Our industry experience includes technology, life sciences and healthcare, financial services, insurance, automotive and mobility, and other sectors undergoing AI-driven transformation. Our combination of cross-practice depth, industry experience, practical AI knowledge, and firsthand adoption experience positions us to be a go-to partner for general counsel and legal departments as they manage AI risk, capture opportunity, and transform their organizations.