Specialist legal AI is here to stay: Joe Rayment on consolidation and what comes next
At ILTACON 2026, Tim Kenney sat down with Joe Rayment, Founder and CEO of Cicero, the matter analysis platform built for litigators. It was Joe's third ILTACON and his third time on People in Legal, and he arrived with a clear message: the specialist legal AI category has just been validated.
What Cicero does
Cicero helps litigation teams find the facts a case will turn on, faster than they could on their own. Joe described it as a matter analysis platform: it works through the material in a dispute so lawyers can spend more of their time on strategy and, ultimately, get better outcomes for clients.
The business works with 17 firms in Australia and around 50 worldwide, much of it with alternative legal service providers across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the US. Joe also shared plans to launch in the Middle East, where he sees strong demand for handling complex Arabic-language material.
Why a competitor's acquisition was good news
The biggest shift Joe noticed at this year's show came from a deal in July: Legora agreed to acquire Wexler, the product he sees as Cicero's closest comparator. For years, specialist tools faced the same question from buyers: if you already have a broad legal AI platform, why would you need anything else?
That's an acknowledgement from the big guys that they can't do everything and don't do everything.
Joe said the deal has sparked a wave of interest in Cicero, with firms asking what a specialist tool can do that their existing investments can't. After three and a half years of hard building, he described it as light at the end of the tunnel. As Tim put it, a near competitor forces buyers to compare features properly, and that tends to help everyone in the category.
Two predictions for ILTACON 2027
Tim asked every guest the same question this year: what will the market look like when you sit back down at this table in twelve months? Joe gave two answers.
First, consolidation. He expects more vendors doing similar things under fewer banners, as the acquisition wave continues.
Second, the arrival of the largest AI companies in legal. Joe pointed to moves by Anthropic, Google and OpenAI, and said he wouldn't be surprised to see those players become a significant part of firm strategies, especially as the first round of three and four year legal AI contracts comes up for renewal.
What it means for firms
For law firm leaders, Joe's view suggests two things to plan for: a smaller number of broad platforms, and specialist tools that earn their place by doing one job, such as fact analysis in disputes, better than a generalist can. Contract renewals will be the moment to test both.
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