At the end of ILTACON 2026, I reached out to many of the people I met with for their observations about the conference and covered some of them yesterday. Here’s part two of ILTACON 2026 crowdsourced observations!
FYI, I’m publishing their crowdsourced ILTACON 2026 observations in the order they provided them to me and splitting them over three posts.
This was my 31st ILTACON – 29 in person and two virtual – all the way back to the Lawnet days. As always, I loved the pervasive feeling of a family reunion – even at the biggest ILTACON in history. I was struck by the number of familiar faces, as well as those I was meeting for the first time, as well as the mix of AI topics and the many sessions and conversations that didn’t involve AI. Can’t wait to see what it looks like next year. Joy Heath Rush, Chief Executive Officer, International Legal Technology Association (ILTA)
ILTACON carried forward the flag of AI as it sweeps across the field of law. Once it was eDiscovery that took over the show, but now that is merely an afterthought. The signs of AI’s ascendency were on display across session titles and exhibit hall booths. With reportedly 6,000 or so attendees, I saw few sessions with large audiences, while the floor, which used to ebb and flow based on the timing of session blocks, remained at a near-constant level, making me wonder if ILTACON has become merely a paid vacation for overwhelmed legal technologists. Eric P. Mandel, Director, Global Advisory Services, KLDiscovery
AI has stopped being a buzzword in eDiscovery. What interests me isn’t the adoption curve so much as the speed of it. This is a discipline that spent the better part of a decade establishing that TAR was defensible and AI hasn’t gotten that treatment. I think it’s because the thing everyone braced for didn’t happen. AI isn’t replacing attorneys or their judgment. From my seat it’s an accelerator: the calls still belong to the people making them, they just get there faster. Alisa McLellan, OnDean Forward
ILTACON 2026 felt a bit like Nashville itself: plenty of excitement on the main stage, just as much substance in the side conversations, and nearly universal discussion of accelerated AI adoption amid record attendance and a packed exhibit hall. Everyone was equally focused on the practical challenges, such as Rule 37 risk that the rapid rise of generative AI poses, which we discussed on the eDiscovery panel. The energy at Opryland was undeniable, and some of the best insights came from hallway encounters, assuming you could navigate your way through the atriums. Marcin Krieger, Counsel, Reed Smith
Of course all of the big players were at ILTACON, and in a big way, but there were also hundreds of point solutions on the floor. And I don’t think we’re talking enough about the existential risks they are facing from firms that can now perhaps build their own AI-driven workflows that are nearly as good. Smaller players must show unique value quickly and get their message out effectively, or risk getting lost in the flood being created by the major players, their billboards, and their A-list entertainers. Brad Blickstein, CEO, Blickstein Group
Tokengeddon looms large. As money sloshed around the exhibit hall and spilled over into private concerts with famous artists, signs kept popping up that the industry is holding its breath for the possible collapse of AI’s subsidized pricing model. Firm tech people nodded with measured dread whenever anyone suggested paying the true cost of token consumption, while vendors sprinkled their narratives with notes of cost-consciousness and more efficient models. Stakes are high, because managing the pricing transition will likely determine if next year’s big party delivers another Sheryl Crow or karaoke with Sheryl from accounting. Joe Patrice, Senior Editor, Above the Law
As a community, we are heavily invested in leveraging AI for legal work. We are beyond pilots. We are getting beyond fits and starts toward greater widespread adoption. We are delivering real value to our internal and business clients. ILTACON panels devoted clear-eyed attention to creative, safe, and defensible workflows, project management, integration of tools, and measuring return on investment. Chuck Kellner, Senior Strategic Discovery Advisor, Everlaw
While AI may be changing eDiscovery workflows, ILTACON reinforced that our industry has a strong foundation on which to build. Validation principles developed through technology-assisted review provide a quantitative framework for responsible AI adoption, with qualitative validation adding essential context for generative AI use cases. The shift from optimism about AI’s potential to successful use cases is well underway, with many attendees sharing real-world examples of defensible adoption. While the themes of governance and “trust but verify” were woven throughout the conference, the prevailing energy was one of action. The industry is quickly running out of spectators, and even those still on the sidelines are looking for their way into the game. Tiana Van Dyk, Managing Director, Canada, Epiq
I’m sure you will get a lot of feedback on ILTACON, but one thing that struck me was the vendor floor. It was large, and I was happy to see so many start up booths, but I also felt like they were not getting anywhere near the attraction/attention that they deserved. V Group for example had a stand-alone private AI that was pretty compelling, but I don’t think many saw it? Monique Sever, Litigation Support & eDiscovery Supervisor, Harper Grey LLP
AI was of course a large conversation at ILTACON 2026, but the useful part wasn’t the volume of it. It was watching the industry start to converge on what actually matters: transparency, defensibility, and end-to-end workflow fit. We launched Nebula AI Case Explorer™ into that conversation, and the value of ILTACON was the density of Clients willing to sit down and stress-test it with us. That feedback, pointed and specific, is a better signal of where we, as a company, need to continue innovating on behalf of Clients. ILTACON was worth attending for that alone: the people in the room were exceptional and made the product better in real time. Julian Merschen, Chief Product Officer, KLDiscovery
ILTACON this year felt like a reflection of what’s occurring across legal technology more broadly: everything is moving faster, getting bigger, and attracting more money. Attendance was up, the exhibit hall was more extravagant, the parties were bigger, and partnerships were expanding exponentially as companies looked for ways to expand their reach, access valuable legal information, and make increasingly useful connections across systems and datasets. Nicole Black, Journalist and Principal Legal Insight Strategist at 8am
ILTACON 2026 showed law firms are finally maturing in their AI evolution. Many conversations and sessions focused on more advanced operational and governance issues—from whether AI platforms are training on law firm data to the evolving role of law firm data scientists and how to leverage frameworks for more precise AI prompting. Still, the AI landscape is quickly shifting beneath firms. Vendors are broadening their agentic AI offerings, giving attorneys more powerful, integrated and seamless agentic systems— and a new set of novel privacy, governance and cultural challenges. Rhys Dipshan, Editor-in-Chief, Legal Technology, ALM Media
There were so many people who provided crowdsourced ILTACON 2026 observations that I couldn’t fit it all into one post! I’ll post the final set of comments I received tomorrow. Thanks to all who crowdsourced ILTACON 2026 observations for me – you saved me writing three posts this week! 😀
So, what do you think? Did you attend ILTACON 2026? If so, feel free to comment with your own observations below! And 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.