Enter Harvey, today’s golden child that lives at the intersection of technology and law.

Harvey is an A.I. platform that can help lawyers perform legal tasks in areas such as due diligence, litigation, and compliance. Described as “the innovative artificial intelligence platform built on a version of Open AI’s latest models enhanced for legal work,” legaltech startup Harvey, the self-styled “generative A.I. for elite law firms,” is about to play in the big leagues.

Harvey is being rolled out for use by 3,500 lawyers in 43 offices of Allen & Overy, the seventh largest law firm in the world and part of London’s “Magic Circle.”

I’ve watched legaltech evolve from the inside for decades. Having built one of the world’s first legaltech startup accelerators that brought together tech startups, investment, and law firms, I not only lived through the first major wave of legaltech startup hype and (over)funding, I helped fuel it.

Reading the Allen & Overy press release on Harvey, it’s easy to believe that law, technology, and artificial intelligence are now inseparable.

But as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission reminded us on Monday, the claims about the abilities and benefits of artificial intelligence are out of control. In warning businesses to “keep your A.I. claims in check,” the FTC is sending a critically important message to the legal industry: While A.I. might sound intriguing to some, it won’t work in practice for most.

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