Again, this year, I’m covering polls from the 2025 UF-Law E-Discovery Conference! Here’s the first installment, with AI and GenAI poll results!

The 12th(!) annual UF Law eDiscovery Conference conducted by the University of Florida Levin College of Law was held last month, and it had great educational content as always. It’s also become the biggest eDiscovery educational conference with over 3,000 attendees participating over the course of three days.

Because several hundred people are attending each session, the polls that are conducted during some of the sessions are very informative and instructive regarding trends in the industry. Once again, Maribel Rivera was kind enough to share the poll results with me. So, over a series of posts the next couple of weeks, I will publish the results of polls from the 2025 UF-Law E-Discovery Conference!

Today, I’m starting with polls related to AI and GenAI. The first poll result came from the session Smart, Swift, and Strategic: GenAI’s Power in Document Review, which was conducted on Thursday and moderated by Maribel Rivera, with panelists Esther Birnbaum, Robert Keeling, Jake Ancona & Nathaniel Giddings. The question asked was:

Where are you on your GenAI journey?

And here are the results:

Wow! Over half of 610 respondents (55%) said that they are merely at the “Curious but haven’t explored its applications yet” stage. Only 14% of respondents said they were “Actively using GenAI and looking for best practices”. This tells me that adoption of GenAI within the legal and eDiscovery communities may not be progressing as fast as many people think.

Also conducted on Thursday, the session Accelerating AI Adoption: Insights from Legal Tech’s Pivotal Moments (moderated by Meribeth Banaschik, with panelists Stephen Dooley, Andrew Ward, Hon. Anthony Porcelli & Chandan Sarkar) conducted three polls! Here’s the first:

Do you think lawyers will adopt gen AI technology at a higher rate than other technology in previous years?

And here are the results:

Interesting that this result is more “gung-ho” than the previous one. Close to half of 488 respondents (45%) said “Yes, it’s definitely going to take off”. While nearly a third of respondents (31%) said “No, the legal field is quite conservative and it will still take time”. Judging by the previous poll, they may be right. The second poll was:

Which area of legal work do you believe will benefit the most from AI integration? or more likely to adopt?

And here are the results:

Not much surprise here. 59% of a whopping 905(!) respondents said: “Document Review and Analysis”. No other choice was even close. Of course, it’s an eDiscovery influenced respondent group, so perhaps the other choices would have been higher for a general legal crowd? The third poll was:

What is the biggest barrier to AI adoption in your legal practice?

And here are the results:

32% of 841(!) respondents said: “Lack of Understanding/Knowledge”, with “Data Privacy Concerns” a surprising second at 28%. “High Implementation Costs” was third at 16% – surprised that’s not a bit higher. And “Resistance to Change” was fourth at 15%, which is somewhat surprising, although most people probably wouldn’t admit that they’re resistant to change, so maybe not? 😉

It’s never too early to start planning for next year’s conference, which will be conducted February 24th through February 26th in 2026! Mark your calendars! And look for more results of AI polls from the 2025 UF-Law E-Discovery Conference next week!

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

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.