{"id":5439,"date":"2024-04-19T09:12:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T08:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/avispl.com\/mx\/?p=5439"},"modified":"2025-02-17T11:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T16:31:08","slug":"are-modern-law-firm-meeting-spaces-ready-for-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avispl.pe\/en\/blog\/are-modern-law-firm-meeting-spaces-ready-for-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Are modern law firm meeting spaces ready for AI?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s guest author is Simon Shaw, Sector Director \u2013 Professional Services UK & Ireland.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following article comes from Simon\u2019s personal LinkedIn page.<\/a> He has agreed to let us share his perspectives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the dynamic world of legal practice, technology continues to reshape how law firms operate, communicate, and serve their clients. Among the myriad of technological advancements, Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands out, significantly impacting various aspects of legal work. Microsoft Copilot and similar AI technologies have become indispensable tools, enhancing productivity, streamlining workflow, and offering unprecedented support in case management and research.  Magic Circle law firms have understandably been investing significantly into researching the potential of AI, with many, such as Clifford Chance already boldly rolling out MS Copilot to all their employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the effectiveness of these AI solutions, particularly in hybrid meetings and industry specific meeting spaces such as training rooms, seminar rooms, and virtual courtrooms, is profoundly influenced by one often-overlooked aspect: The ability of the meeting space to support the core platform\u2019s technology in achieving its potential output.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of practices mandating three to four days of office attendance a week is increasing. Pressure placed on firm IT and facilities departments to provide \u2018best in class\u2019 legal firm collaboration environments and user experiences<\/a> is continually increasing as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put simply, it\u2019s of no use to deliver a revolutionary service to partners, clients, and employees that only works reliably as intended at a desktop level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At a fundamental level an AI tool or platform must recognise who is saying what.  This is comparatively easy to achieve for an individual joining a call from a personal device logged into M365 using their named MS account.  It\u2019s fairly simple to optimise this scenario for Hybrid workers by making use of high quality background noise filtering headsets or desktop mic\/ speakers, and a little user education.  The same is true for office based workers, though if they are joining meetings from their personal device, they need to be aware of their surroundings, and potential level of surrounding noise, particularly if their desk is in an open plan area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a significant challenge for a meeting space environment, for example, within a dedicated Microsoft Teams meeting room individual attendees need to be identified by Copilot for it to perform its intended function.  There are two manners in which AI can potentially do this; speech recognition, or face recognition.  Both of these rely on the meeting space delivering intelligent camera and Microphone \/ speaker setups, that are able to \u2018See\u2019 and \u2018hear\u2019 individual faces and voices, otherwise AI can, and will, make mistakes that lead to costly misunderstandings and miscommunications, or all the potential time saved being lost by a labour intensive process of manually checking of AI outputs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meeting room layout and camera technology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Equity of experience for all meeting participants, whether remote or in person has been at the forefront of any modern enterprise\u2019s wish list.  A classical \u2018bowling alley\u2019 location for a camera in a multi-purpose meeting room with a rectangular table means the potential for face recognition technology being able to do its job effectively is slim, as room participants heads are commonly obscured by the person sitting next to them, and they are also not likely to face the camera for the duration of the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voice transmission<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s very common for voice pickup and transmission from a badly setup meeting space to be perceived as poor by the far end of a hybrid meeting when compared to an individual using a high quality headset, and this transmission is what the AI platform will \u2018hear\u2019, attribute to an individual, and use to perform it\u2019s tasks, making an educated guess as to who is saying what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it a technology challenge?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not exclusively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft and various technology vendors have been heavily investing in development of \u2018intelligent\u2019  multi-camera and microphone technology in answer to the meeting space AI challenge.  This technology is progressing at a rapid pace, however if you put the latest and greatest microphones in a glass box with an air conditioning system providing ominous levels of background noise for good measure, the end result will consistently be devastatingly poor.  Similarly, I\u2019ve yet to see a camera that\u2019s able to produce a perfect image pointing directly into a substantial light source, or guess what a persons face looks like if it only has half of someone\u2019s face to work with as a base image in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately there is no \u2018silver bullet\u2019.  IT and facilities departments need to work together alongside a trusted integrator and service provider to create meeting space environments that are for purpose, and as future proof as possible. This means a collaborative approach from the ground up incorporating:<\/p>\n\n\n\n