Axiom Survey: 83% of In-House Legal Teams Can't Measure Their AI ROI, Yet All Plan to Spend More
A new Axiom Law report, based on a March 2026 survey of 528 in-house legal leaders across six countries, finds that just 7% of legal teams have scaled AI deployment beyond pilots, while 83% say they cannot measure whether their AI spending is delivering results. Despite that measurement gap, 100% of teams currently using AI plan to increase their AI budgets in the next cycle, and 98% say outside g
BY FRONTIER DESK · JULY 2, 2026 · 1 MIN READ
A new Axiom Law report, based on a March 2026 survey of 528 in-house legal leaders across six countries, finds that just 7% of legal teams have scaled AI deployment beyond pilots, while 83% say they cannot measure whether their AI spending is delivering results. Despite that measurement gap, 100% of teams currently using AI plan to increase their AI budgets in the next cycle, and 98% say outside guidance would help them get more value from their investments. For law firm pricing and business-development leaders, this is a critical signal: corporate legal departments are scaling AI spend without clear ROI benchmarks, which creates both risk and opportunity — firms that can demonstrate measurable, AI-driven cost or time savings to clients have an opening to differentiate on outcomes rather than input hours. It also implies that in-house buyers may increasingly look to outside counsel and vendors for help quantifying AI value, a services opportunity beyond legal work itself.