GC AI: In-House Teams Cut Outside Counsel Spend 14% on Average with AI Triage

GC AI's December 2025 ROI study of over 100 active customers found in-house teams reduce outside counsel spend by an average of 14%. At the ACC 2024 median of $1.8M in annual outside counsel spend, that is approximately $252K in annual savings per department. The underlying mechanism is not rate negotiation — it is matter triage: AI identifies low-complexity, high-frequency work (NDAs, employment queries, regulatory update summaries) that was previously routed to outside counsel and routes it to in-house handling or automation. For law firms, the 14% reduction figure is not a threat in isolation — it is a signal about which work categories are most exposed to insourcing. Firms that have built practices around high-volume, standardized outside counsel work without differentiating on judgment and complexity are the most exposed to this displacement.