4,000 legal professionals at one of the world's largest accounting firms are getting a chatbot to speed up their work

• Accounting firm PwC is giving 4,000 of its lawyers access to an AI chatbot to help speed up work.
• The chatbots are being provided by AI startup Harvey which has a 12-month partnership with PwC.

One of the largest accounting firms in the world is joining in on the AI chatbot hype by giving over 4,000 of its legal professionals access to a chatbot to help speed up their work.

PricewaterhouseCoopers is partnering with AI startup Harvey for the 12-month initiative, and said the generative AI technology will be used to help lawyers in areas like due diligence, contract analysis, "and broader legal advisory and legal consulting services," according to a press release.

The firm said AI won't be used to provide clients with legal advice, nor will it replace or substitute lawyers and professional legal services.

"Harvey will help generate insights and recommendations based on large volumes of data, delivering richer information that will enable PwC professionals to identify solutions faster," PwC said, noting that the chatbot's work will be overseen and reviewed by professionals at PwC.

Harvey builds custom large language models (LLMs) for elite law firms, and "uses natural language processing, machine learning and data analytics to automate and enhance various aspects of legal work." Harvey is backed by ChatGPT creator OpenAI's Startup Fund, and is built on OpenAI and ChatGPT technology, according to the press release.

PwC also plans to use Harvey to develop and train its own proprietary models to make products for the firm's use and for its Legal Business Solutions clients.

"Working with PwC provides a unique opportunity to further enhance AI's potential to solve the most complex legal problems," Gabriel Pereyra, the cofounder and CEO of Harvey, said. "The scope of PwC's capabilities enables us to collaborate on AI systems that expand on Harvey's core legal use cases to provide more comprehensive solutions for PwC and their clients."