For decades, the legal profession in the UK has been portrayed as centuries-old chambers filled with paper bundles, barristers’ wigs, and careful deliberation. Regulation and compliance, similarly, have long been regarded as realms of painstaking, manual work: complicated rules, cross-checks, documentation, and endless forms. Contracts—whether for employment, tenancy, banking, trade, or procurement—have always required meticulous reading and high literacy. The law has always been considered something that moves slowly, preserving tradition as society changes at break-neck speed.
But in the last two years, especially since the rise of large language models like ChatGPT, this picture has changed dramatically. Behind the scenes—in solicitors’ offices, corporate compliance departments, financial institutions, and startups—the very foundation of legal and regulatory work is being transformed. Not replaced, but transformed.
This article speaks directly to the UK public—not just lawyers, policymakers, or academics—because the change affects everyone. Every citizen who signs a contract, every tenant facing a landlord dispute, every small business owner navigating data protection, every professional dealing with HR policies, every student concerned with academic integrity, and every worker whose employer must comply with a patchwork of UK and international regulations.
AI will not replace the rule of law. But it is already reshaping the machinery that keeps the UK’s legal and compliance systems running.
Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT function by predicting the next most likely word in a sentence based on patterns learned from vast amounts of text. That might sound simple, even trivial, but the capability that emerges from this mechanism is astonishing: the ability to summarise, translate, explain, rewrite, and reason through complex material.
For legal, compliance, and contractual work, this means ChatGPT can:
read and analyse long documents
identify potential issues (e.g., missing signatures, inconsistent dates, obvious risks)
summarise complex clauses
compare two versions of a contract
provide plain-English explanations for non-lawyers
generate early-stage drafts of legal letters
help prepare compliance checklists
outline arguments, defences, or mitigation strategies
guide users to relevant regulations and frameworks
However, it is not a barrister, solicitor, or regulator. It does not “know” the law in the human sense, it cannot provide legal advice, and it may not always be up to date with UK legislation unless connected to real-time systems. It cannot replace professional judgement.
What it can do—and what it is doing already—is dramatically accelerating the parts of legal and compliance work that involve reading, structuring, checking, and drafting text.
Think of it as the world’s most powerful legal assistant: fast, tireless, and available for pennies per query.
Legal and compliance jobs involve three qualities that make them especially suited to AI assistance:
The law is written, not spoken. Contracts, statutes, case summaries, risk reports, policies—all rely on text.
Even when ambiguous, law centres on structure, precedent, logic, and predictable patterns—elements that LLMs excel at recognising.
In the UK, law firms have long faced backlogs, while compliance officers face an ever-expanding universe of regulatory demands: GDPR, FCA rules, ESG reporting, AML/CTF obligations, modern slavery statements, supply chain transparency, and more.
ChatGPT steps into this environment not to replace professionals, but to relieve pressure. It frees them to focus on strategy, judgement, negotiation, and advocacy—the aspects no AI can replicate.
Although media coverage often imagines a futuristic AI-courtroom, the real use cases emerging in UK legal practice are far more grounded. Conversations with solicitors, barristers, regulatory consultants, and law-tech startups reveal consistent themes.
AI assists with early-stage scanning of large document bundles, identifying anomalies, highlighting key passages, and flagging provisions that differ from industry norms.
Lawyers are using ChatGPT to produce “Version 0” drafts of agreements, client letters, witness statements, skeleton arguments, or internal memos. These drafts always require human review, but they save significant time.
Many clients struggle to understand legal jargon. ChatGPT helps generate simple explanations that improve transparency.
While human verification remains essential, AI dramatically speeds up the first stage of gathering information, locating relevant concepts, and listing potential arguments.
Large practices are training ChatGPT-style models on their own precedents and templates to build AI tools that reflect internal standards and risk appetite.
Notably, these changes are not hypothetical. They are happening quietly and quickly. Within some UK firms, the use of LLMs is already a daily expectation.
Compliance work in the UK is vast. Every industry—finance, health care, education, manufacturing, hospitality, local government, charities—faces regulatory requirements. Many of these obligations involve:
checking if policies exist
verifying if they are up to date
drafting risk assessments
writing reports
documenting training
reviewing contracts
ensuring procurement fairness
preparing audits
AI steps in as a force multiplier.
ChatGPT can flag outdated terms, missing risk language, or conflicting procedures.
It helps compliance teams classify risks, highlight mitigation strategies, and compare internal policies against regulatory frameworks.
When the ICO, FCA, Charity Commission, Ofsted, or other bodies request documentation, AI can speed up the preparation of draft responses.
Employees often struggle to interpret policies. AI-powered chat interfaces let them ask questions like “Do I need to report this?” or “What does this clause mean?” without going through lengthy manuals.
From ESG to modern slavery compliance, AI can analyse supplier contracts and statements at scale.
These capabilities reduce admin time and, crucially, improve compliance culture by making rules easier to understand.
Contracts are everywhere: phone plans, employment agreements, data processing addendums, tenancy agreements, vendor contracts, NDAs, share purchase agreements, and more.
For individuals and SMEs, many of these documents are difficult to understand or afford legal review for. AI is bridging this gap.
spots inconsistent dates or amounts
flags unusual or one-sided clauses
compares two versions to highlight changes
explains obligations in plain English
identifies missing data, signatures, or appendices
provides “what to ask the lawyer” lists
None of this replaces a qualified solicitor. Instead, it empowers people to:
know what questions to ask
understand the basic risks
avoid obvious mistakes
prevent being rushed into signing
It is democratising understanding.
Despite the benefits, AI in legal matters comes with real risks.
Large language models may occasionally produce incorrect or fabricated information. This requires constant human oversight.
ChatGPT cannot replace professional legal advice, nor can it interpret facts with the nuance required in disputes.
Users must avoid pasting sensitive, personal, or confidential material into systems that do not guarantee privacy. UK regulators are already focusing on this issue.
AI can unintentionally reproduce structural biases unless carefully monitored.
Over-reliance may erode professional training or lead users to misunderstand the limits of automation.
The UK’s pro-innovation AI regulatory framework is evolving. Oversight will strengthen as the technology becomes more embedded.
A nuanced debate continues over whether AI should be trained on publicly available judgments or proprietary legal text.
For the public, the most important principle is clear: AI helps you understand and prepare better—but crucial decisions must still involve qualified human professionals.
As an academic committee member working with regulatory and policy frameworks, I see several likely developments over the next five years:
Guidance on accuracy checks, data privacy, and human oversight.
Much like CE markings or cyber-security certifications.
Especially relevant for consumer-facing AI tools.
Just as lawyers now learn digital disclosure tools, AI literacy will become essential.
For civil servants, compliance teams, educators, and health-care administrators.
Ensuring people understand AI output is informational, not determinative.
Not to decide cases, but to improve administration: scheduling, summarising documents, and assisting litigants-in-person.
These reforms will help ensure that the benefits of AI do not compromise the rule of law.
AI in legal and compliance work affects ordinary citizens in profound ways.
Disputes involving landlords, employers, insurers, banks, and councils may move more quickly when paperwork is easier to process.
Plain-English explanations help people navigate complex agreements with confidence.
Small firms can serve more clients at lower cost.
Businesses may adopt clearer language if AI analysis makes opacity less defensible.
AI can highlight inconsistencies or failures in how policies are applied.
AI can detect unfair contract terms or abnormal risk patterns.
Smaller UK businesses—often overwhelmed by compliance—gain low-cost support.
This is where AI becomes not just a technological curiosity but a civic tool.
Within five to ten years, the UK could see:
hybrid human-AI workflows as the norm
AI-assisted legal education
smarter public-sector regulatory systems
improved transparency in law
enhanced safety nets for consumers
more consistent compliance across industries
The legal profession will remain human at its core: empathy, judgement, persuasion, negotiation, and ethical interpretation cannot be automated. But the machinery surrounding legal work—drafting, reviewing, checking, summarising—will be increasingly AI-powered.
This shift is not about replacing lawyers or regulators; it is about making the system faster, fairer, and more accessible.
ChatGPT and similar technologies represent a profound moment in the evolution of legal and compliance work in the UK. They are making specialised knowledge more accessible, reducing administrative burdens, increasing transparency, and empowering both professionals and the public.
But the UK must steer this transformation wisely—with ethical guardrails, strong privacy protections, high professional standards, and clear communication about what AI can and cannot do.
If we get it right, we can build a legal ecosystem that serves everyone: efficient yet humane, innovative yet principled, modern yet rooted in centuries of British legal tradition.
Artificial intelligence is not the future of law.
It is the present—already shaping how agreements are made, rights are understood, and compliance is achieved.
The challenge and opportunity now lie in ensuring that the benefits reach the whole of society.
