Gaythri Raman is the Managing Director of LexisNexis Southeast Asia. She is responsible for the development and execution of strategies and plans to grow the adoption of online solutions for the litigation, corporate, and academic segments across Southeast Asia.
In a conversation with ETLegalWorld following the launch of Protégé in India, Raman discussed evolving AI adoption among legal teams, the importance of trust and human oversight in legal AI, data privacy safeguards, AI literacy, and the need for technology providers to remain closely aligned with customers’ evolving needs.
ETLegalWorld: With the launch of Protege in India, how would you describe the legal needs and expectations of Indian in-house teams and law firms, particularly compared with those in other Asian markets?
Gaythri Raman: I think fundamentally, lawyering, especially in the general counsel space, is very similar outside of India. Because you have so many companies here that are doing business outside India. You know, Indian companies are some of the biggest companies in the world. So, they are doing work, doing legal work all over the world. Which means the lawyering, the requirements, the adherence to quality, they are all very, very similar in these decades, and therefore, I think that gives us a lot of trust and that gives us a lot of certainty in the quality of the work that is proposed as well.
ETLegalWorld: How does LexisNexis carry that trust into its generative AI and agentic AI solutions?
Gaythri Raman: Yes. So, if you take Protégé, LexisNexis has always built trust. Even if it is a book for lawyers to trust, use, refer and cite it all. That trust is just translated into generative AI. Like what Protégé does. That trust is really important because fundamentally, we provide the information for lawyers to cite in court, to argue their case better. If they argue their case well, it serves the wheels of justice. So, this exact thing, we are bringing forward with general AI, generative AI, agentic AI.
ETLegalWorld: What kind of internal safeguards and guardrails does LexisNexis have in place to ensure data privacy and security when customers use Protégé?
Gaythri Raman: Yes. So, the content that we use is closed content. So, it is our experts in legal content. Everything is ready for the truth. Human oversight. So, at any point in time, there is a human that always checks on the output. And then, it needs to be explainable. So, whatever we build, we need to be able to explain it as well. And we protect privacy. So, the prompts that happen, for example, the customer uploads something into our environment, for example, we don’t keep it. It is purged as well. So, it is safe for the customer. And as we talk about the innovation factor.
ETLegalWorld: How is LexisNexis helping build AI literacy and awareness within the legal community, particularly among in-house legal teams?
Gaythri Raman: So, an event like today is an example, right? We have experts in the subject. Fifteen of them came and spoke and shared today. We also had a Rule of Law and AI Forum a few months ago. We will continue to have these kinds of dialogues where everybody shares and other people are able to learn. We also have a customer success team that trains our customers on how to use AI as well. So, we support AI literacy because we support responsible use of AI.
ETLegalWorld: Looking ahead, what are LexisNexis’ priorities for growth and innovation, and what can the legal industry expect in terms of new technology and solutions?
Gaythri Raman: I think what is important is that we need to be closer to our customers and the lawyers right? So, when we see that there is a need and we work with them very, very closely, then we will be able to innovate because we are innovating on problems, right? So, I think the real important thing for us is to be as close to our customers as we can, so that we are able to understand their problems and then we are able to work with them to come up with solutions for them. We are here to stay. We have been here for 100 years, right? So, any new technology that we use is always going to be serving our customers.
ETLegalWorld: What key trends are you seeing in the market today around the adoption and deployment of AI within law firms and companies?
Gaythri Raman: I feel like I cannot identify a trend because it is so widespread. Everybody is using it, you know, and everybody’s child is using it, right? So, can you imagine, I mean, if you had a child right now, he is already using it. And so, when he comes up, is that going to be a trend? It is not going to be a trend anymore, right? So, I think it has become a necessity whether we like it or not. And I think those of us who realise that it is important for us to check and balance, we need to do something about it and be smart about it as well.
[The views and opinions expressed in this interview are solely those of the interviewee in their personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organization, ETLegalWorld, or its affiliates.]
