You’re approaching AI adoption from the wrong end.
I just looked at Q2 2025 industry data on AI productivity gains across different departments. Here’s what jumped out at me: HR is dead last at 5.8%. Legal barely better at 6.5%.
This is such a perfect case in point about what’s broken in most companies’ approaches to AI adoption.
Everyone’s rushing to automate customer service with chatbots, and 10x their SDRs’ workflows. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.
But what happens to the departments who are still drowning in manual paperwork?
HR and Legal – the people who stand to benefit the most from contract AI – are the ones we’re helping the least.
Why? Because most people still think about AI as if it’s 2010 software:
– “Let’s build powerful new integrations!”
– “We need a 6-month transformation roadmap!”
– “We have to start with a needs assessment for Legal!”
No. You’re coming at this all wrong.
I see this with Concord’s customer’s every day. Companies spend months debating AI strategy, and trying to assess needs and plan a roadmap.
Meanwhile, their Legal and HR departments are still manually typing the same data into three different systems.
The real problem isn’t the technology. It’s that we’re asking the wrong question.
Stop asking “How can we implement AI across the business?”
Start asking “Where are people doing the stupidest, most repetitive work?”
Look at your HR team manually typing in employee data.
Look at your Legal team copy-pasting contract terms into spreadsheets.
That’s where AI should start. Not because it’s cool and sexy. Because it’s stupid that humans still have to do this crap in 2025.
Fix the broken stuff first. The ROI is hiding in plain sight.
Matt Lhoumeau is the CEO and co-founder of Concord, a leading provider of Agreement Intelligence solutions. Concord empowers growing businesses to make smarter operational decisions by unlocking actionable insights from contracts, and is trusted by over 1,500 companies worldwide.
