Relativity provided one of my few truly private briefing opportunities at the new Legalweek. The trek to their floor at 30 Hudson Yards let us bypass press releases (see below) and instead dig into the executive team’s long-term vision for a broader legal data intelligence platform. Today, 55% of the data coming into RelativityOne comes from non-litigation use cases. That shift defines both the challenge and the opportunity: evolve the market-leading large-matter eDiscovery platform beyond a linear EDRM interpretation to support new customers, workflows, and outcomes.

Does Relativity have the vision, resources, and resolve to evolve from the traditional eDiscovery model it was built on?

CEO Phil Saunders’s vision of Relativity as a 100-year company powered by aiR-integrated workflows resonated at Relativity Fest 2025. He backed CPO Chris Brown’s push for a unified, dynamic RelativityOne cloud architecture—even amid pressure from customers wedded to traditional server implementations. The Relativity Fest keynote segments told a story of change: inclusive aiR functions and agents supporting far more than traditional relevance determination and production. Relativity’s announcement last week of a possible IPO should provide the resources to make that transformation real. However, IPO investors rarely reward “slow and steady” growth; they expect innovation, risk-taking, and rapid expansion into adjacent and new markets. Saunders’s leadership experience at Saba and Cornerstone provides a strong track record for navigating IPO-era expectations with the right product-market fit.

Key Relativity announcements

  • Relativity launched Relativity aiR for Data Breach Response, a new module now generally available under its AI-powered aiR suite. The tool automates key breach-investigation tasks—for example, identifying personal data and generating notification-ready reports—to help organizations respond faster and more defensibly.
    • Giving corporate RelativityOne customers the ability to run their own breach-response workflows—amid an increasingly hostile threat environment—strengthens the ROI case for owning an eDiscovery platform.
  • Relativity aiR for Case Strategy became generally available in January.
  • Part Two of the FTI and Relativity General Counsel Report 2025 was released.
    • AI adoption is rapidly accelerating in legal departments with 87% of general counsel reporting using generative AI within their teams, nearly doubling from 2025. 39% say AI is now a strategic priority for improving legal department efficiency and effectiveness.
      • The pressure to leverage AI is much broader than legal departments or their retained counsel.
    • When asked about main concerns about the potential impact of using generative AI within their organization and legal department, those rankings almost flipped over when compared to the prior report. Data Privacy, Data Collection and Loss of jobs were at the very bottom and now Data Privacy is #1, Data Collection #2 and Loss of jobs #4. Security was #1 on the chart last year and is now #3. Additionally, overall, more concerns were expressed in terms of higher total percentage points.
      • My top concern is identification of AI generated content vs. custodial content.
    • When asked about concerns over the potential negative impacts of emerging data on legal issues, those who expressed they were Extremely concerned decreased from 21% in 2025 to 13% in 2026.
      • This may spike back up with any well publicized sanctions or evidence falsification matters.
    • Fewer respondents reported, across a range of categories, experiencing new challenges associated with collaboration applications, linked documents, cloud productivity platforms, etc., showing that some of the rapid evolution in the data landscape might have slowed.
      • AI content is so much scarier and complex than simple collaborative content that it is creating a level of consumer numbness to the risks.
    • The legal operations function is shown to have grown. When respondents were asked if they had a dedicated legal operations function, only 29% said Yes in 2025 and that rose to 41% in 2026.

Wrapping up, Relativity handled the venue migration far better than most exhibitors at Legalweek 2026. Their comparatively low-key posture on announcements now makes more sense in light of a possible IPO. I am excited about the prospects for Relativity to evolve into a broader legal data intelligence platform—one that meets the expanding challenges facing legal, compliance, and other stakeholders.

Briefing:

Phil Saunders – CEO

Cristina Rossman – CMO

Chris Brown – CPO

David Horrigan – Discovery Counsel & Edu. Dir.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greg Buckles wants your feedback, questions or project inquiries at Greg@eDJGroupInc.com.  Reach out for a free 15 minute ‘Good Karma’ call if he has availability. He solves problems and creates eDiscovery solutions for enterprise and law firm clients.

Greg’s blog perspectives are personal opinions and should not be interpreted as a professional judgment or advice. Greg is no longer an investigative journalist and all perspectives are based on best public information. Blog content is neither approved nor reviewed by any providers prior to being published. Do you want to share your own perspective? Greg is looking for practical, professional informative perspectives free of marketing fluff, hidden agendas or personal/product bias. Outside blogs will clearly indicate the author, company and any relevant affiliations. 

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