This report is deep, but it’s not fake! See what I did there? 🤣 The 2025 State of the Industry Report is out! Here’s how to get it!

It seems that we’re past the honeymoon phase with generative AI and now, we gotta live with it. GenAI is our new roommate – one that starts out by showing that it can be smarter than doctors, put together terrific graphs, identify everything on our kitchen counter (more useful than it sounds) and more, but proceeds to convince us to give it our money, runs up our electric bills, and uses our own voices against us. When it frustrates us, it tells us to “breathe”; when it gets frustrated with us, it tells us to “please die” – hey, at least it’s well mannered! 😉 In other words, it’s acting more like humans all the time! 😁

2025 also marked new recognition by eDiscovery professionals everywhere that the parent-child “family” in emails and other messaging apps has become dysfunctional, with some arguing that these messages are still parents of the hyperlinked files within them that have become commonplace (calling them “modern attachments”), while others have channeled their inner Maury Povich, shouting: “You are not the father!” 😮 So far, several courts are saying that it’s too burdensome to put these families back together, leaving enough “orphans” to fill a thousand orphanages. 🥺

How much is the landscape changing for eDiscovery? That’s what we’re here to find out in the fifth annual State of the Industry Report at eDiscovery Today! How much impact will genAI have in 2025, what are we using it for and on how many actual cases? Is predictive coding still viable? Are mobile devices and collaboration apps still being discovered more? What are people using eDiscovery technology and workflows for? Should hyperlinked files be treated as “modern attachments”? 🤔 What’s the trend of 2025 & what challenge are we still not talking about enough? Three guesses and the first two don’t count on both of those! 🤫

eDiscovery Today launched its fifth annual State of the Industry Report Survey on October 28th, which (for the first time ever!) consisted of twelve questions and concluded it on December 6th.  And 551 of you responded – 107 more than last year! You had me at “hello”! Here are some of the highlights from your responses:

• The breakdown of respondents was Software or Service Provider (39.7%), Law Firm (30.7%), Consultancy (15.4%), Corporation (7.4%), Government Entity (4.7%) and Other (2.0%). About four out of five respondents (80.6%) were from the US.
• The number of respondents for Law Firms, Providers, Consultancies, Corporations and (for the first time ever!) Government Entities have enabled me to break out the responses among those five demographics, so you can see each segment’s responses.
• More than a quarter of respondents (26.0%) expect generative AI & LLM technology to have a transformative effect for eDiscovery – this year! And more than four of five respondents (81.7%) expect it to at least create new workflows in 2025!
• Also, generative AI & LLM technology is being applied to seven different eDiscovery use cases by more than 30% of respondents! Though only 12.3% of respondents are using it in all or most of their cases.
• 30.8% of respondents use predictive coding in all or most of their cases, but 24.9% of respondents use it in very few or none of their cases. Does that reflect an increase or decrease in usage compared to last year’s survey? Find out in the report!
• Discovery of data from mobile devices or collaboration apps? 37.5% of respondents discover mobile devices in all/most of their cases, while 19.7% of respondents do in very few/none of their cases. For collaboration apps, it’s 39.2% and 20.4% respectively.
• Seven use cases for eDiscovery technology/workflows were once again identified as being applied by more than 40% of respondents! And there was a definitive sentiment on whether hyperlinked files should be treated as “modern attachments”! 🤫
• Increased Use of AI Technology, Including Generative AI (48.8%) was the clear choice for the biggest eDiscovery related trend for 2025! Increased Use of Cloud-Based eDiscovery solutions (10.5%) was the only other choice to receive a double-digit percentage!
• And 26.1% once again identified Lack of eDiscovery Competence within Legal as the eDiscovery challenge not being talked about enough, with Increased Use of eDiscovery for Use Cases Other than Litigation second with 15.1%. We’ve been talking about not talking about Lack of eDiscovery Competence for five years now! 🤣

As always, there’s a second component to the State of the Industry report. I also reached out to several industry thought leaders with questions about each of these survey areas and I have also included their observations* to add some additional perspective on these notable topics and trends as we head into 2025. Hopefully, this provides a unique perspective from the industry as a whole and from the thought leader community!

So, how do you get the 53-page(!) 2025 State of the Industry report? If you are currently an email follower of the blog, or if you completed the survey, you will be receiving a link to the report later today or tomorrow. If you’re not currently an email follower of the blog, you can get a FREE copy of the report (and any report eDiscovery Today publishes) simply by following the blog via email. To follow eDiscovery Today, enter your email address at the top of the right sidebar where it says “Follow Blog via Email” to receive the report as well as emails with links to new posts. It’s that easy!

Thanks to Mary Mack, Kaylee Walstad and the EDRM team for your support and sponsorship to promote the 2025 State of the Industry Report! Join Mary and me as we discuss the report on Friday, February 7th at 1pm! Register here!

So, what do you think? Are you surprised by any of the survey results above? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

*Observations expressed in this report by thought leaders are their own and do not represent views of their employers, clients or partners.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.