In today’s fast-paced corporate environment, in-house legal teams are under more pressure than ever to deliver accurate, timely advice while managing costs. A new ROI study from GC AI reveals a transformative solution: purpose-built legal AI. The survey shows that legal teams using GC AI reclaim an average of 14 hours per week, significantly enhancing productivity, reducing reliance on outside counsel, and improving overall work quality.
Legal AI: Turning Hours into Value
The survey, conducted in December 2025 with over 100 active GC AI users, highlights how specialized legal AI tools outperform generalist AI across routine legal workflows. Key findings include:
- 14 hours per week returned per user on average
- 5+ hours per day reclaimed by power users in the 90th percentile
- 14% reduction in outside counsel spending
- 21% greater accuracy compared to generalist AI tools
These gains were consistent across roles, from general counsel and associate general counsel to in-house counsel and legal operations professionals.
“Other companies talk about ROI. We have the data,” says Cecilia Ziniti, co-founder and CEO of GC AI. “The takeaway is simple: legal AI is meaningfully changing in-house work—replacing hours of manual effort and outside counsel dependence with faster, higher-quality execution.”
Significant Cost Savings
The financial impact is equally striking. According to the ACC Law Department Management Benchmarking Report, the median company spends $1.8 million annually on outside counsel. A 14% reduction in external legal spend translates to approximately $252,000 in annual savings—more than enough to cover the cost of AI software, making the investment highly cost-effective.
Legal professionals are already seeing tangible benefits. Wendra Liang, Legal Counsel at Vercel, notes, “I don’t need to call a copyright lawyer for this question anymore. I have a copyright lawyer on my phone or on my desktop.” Meanwhile, Cameron Clark, Head of Legal at Arc’teryx, adds, “We couldn’t do our job without GC AI. The use cases are so broad—from communications to contracts to strategy—it pays for itself in weeks.”
Reclaiming Time for Strategic Work
Beyond efficiency and cost savings, GC AI users report using reclaimed hours for higher-value tasks, including strategic advising, proactive risk planning, and deeper cross-functional collaboration. Legal teams are not just working faster—they’re working smarter, creating sustainable workloads that improve employee satisfaction and organizational effectiveness.
This trend aligns with broader adoption of AI in legal departments. In June 2024, 56% of lawyers reported never using AI in their work. By December 2025, 55% reported using AI daily or hourly. Legal AI has rapidly transitioned from experimental tools to essential, embedded workflows, reshaping the very way legal work is executed.
Why In-House Legal Teams Should Adopt AI
The results are clear: legal AI drives productivity, accuracy, and cost efficiency. In-house teams that embrace specialized AI tools gain a competitive advantage, freeing lawyers to focus on strategic priorities rather than repetitive, manual tasks.
Adopting legal AI is no longer optional—it’s a strategic move for companies seeking to maximize ROI, streamline operations, and future-proof their legal departments.
Ready to Transform Your Legal Team?
Discover how GC AI can help your in-house team reclaim time, reduce costs, and elevate the quality of legal work. Explore GC AI today and turn hours of manual effort into strategic impact.
About GC AI
GC AI is the trusted AI workspace for in-house legal teams, helping them move faster, work smarter, and drive their companies forward. With industry-leading accuracy, Microsoft Word integration, and enterprise-grade security and compliance, GC AI serves 1200+ legal teams including more than 50 public companies, 25 unicorns, and top enterprises like Webflow, Bass Pro Shops, Hitachi, Vercel, and Liquid Death are GC AI customers. Founded by Cecilia Ziniti and Bardia Pourvakil, GC AI combines deep legal expertise with world-class engineering to help companies turn legal into a competitive advantage. Based in San Francisco with a distributed team.
