Articles Posted in Generative AI

Two months ago, during a media briefing at its New York City offices, Thomson Reuters offered a glimpse of what it called the “next generation” of its CoCounsel artificial intelligence platform, a shift, the company said, from AI tools that simply respond to prompts to intelligent agentic systems capable of planning, reasoning, and executing complex, multi step workflows in professional settings.

That vision became reality on August 5, 2025 with the official launch of CoCounsel Legal, a platform that blends agentic workflows with advanced research capabilities, all powered by Westlaw’s vast legal content. Thomson Reuters is positioning it as the most comprehensive AI solution yet for legal professionals.

First unveiled to the media during a July 24 press briefing, the new platform introduces two major innovations: guided workflows that can manage sophisticated legal tasks from start to finish, and Deep Research, an AI-powered research engine that leverages Westlaw’s proprietary tools to deliver thorough, authoritative results. In an August 5 posting in LawSites Weekly Bob Ambrogi writes… “Unlike traditional AI-assisted research that summarizes search results, Deep Research creates research plans, executes them iteratively, and delivers comprehensive reports with transparent reasoning”

As generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) systems become increasingly integrated into search engines, legal research platforms, healthcare diagnostics, and educational tools, questions of factual accuracy and trustworthiness have come to the forefront. Erroneous or hallucinated outputs from large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude can have serious consequences, especially when these tools are used in sensitive domains.

The sheer volume of information processed by AI systems makes comprehensive auditing a significant challenge. This necessitates finding efficient and effective strategies for human oversight.  In this context, the question arises: Should librarians, especially those trained in research methodologies and information literacy, be involved in auditing these systems for factual accuracy? The answer is a resounding yes.

The Librarian’s Expertise in Information Validation

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the legal profession, influencing how attorneys conduct research, draft briefs, analyze litigation risk, and advise clients. As AI tools like generative language models, legal search platforms, and predictive analytics systems become more prevalent, AI literacy has become essential for legal professionals. Law librarians, long recognized for their expertise in research instruction, information curation, and professional ethics, are well positioned to take the lead in promoting AI literacy across the legal ecosystem.

This paper examines the role law librarians should play in fostering AI understanding, outlines strategies for advancing AI literacy, and identifies the challenges and opportunities involved.

In his June 4, 2025 article for The Washington Post, technology columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler explores the capabilities of leading AI chatbots in comprehending and summarizing complex texts. Titled “5 AI bots took our tough reading test. One was smartest , and it wasn’t ChatGPT,” the piece details a comprehensive evaluation of five AI tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Meta AI, and Gemini across diverse domains including literature, law, health science, and politics. Fowler’s investigation reveals that while some AI responses were impressively insightful, others were notably flawed, highlighting the varying degrees of reliability among these tools. Notably, Claude emerged as the top performer, demonstrating consistent accuracy and depth of understanding across the tested subjects.css.washingtonpost.com+1washingtonpost.com+1

You can read the full article here: washingtonpost.com

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