August 19, 2025 • 43 mins
The e-discovery company Reveal Data recently announced that it will launch its new generative AI-powered document review platform, called “aji,” in late September. Notably, the company said it is offering full access to the platform at no cost through Dec. 31, in order to enable “the entire legal community to explore and master the next era in GenAI review innovation.”
To discuss the launch of aji, today’s episode features Reveal’s founder and CEO Wendell Jisa, together with the company’s chief technology officer, Matthew Brothers-McGrew. This launch, Jisa says, represents the culmination of a deeply personal 30-year journey in legal tech from delivering photocopies in Chicago during blizzards to leading what he believes is one of the most significant technology companies in the legal industry.
In their conversation with host Bob Ambrogi, Jisa and Brothers-McGrew make the case that generative AI presents the legal profession with the opportunity to become technology trailblazers rather than laggards. Their goal, they say, is to support the profession by democratizing access to AI across firms of all sizes and types.
They also discuss Reveal’s recent launch of Reveal Private Deployment, an initiative to support customers in whatever way they want to deploy Reveal’s software, whether in the cloud, on-premises, or hybrid. At a time when other companies are pushing their customers away from on-premises deployments and into the cloud, Jisa and Brothers-McGrew say this is yet another way in which Reveal is seeking to democratize access by accommodating the interests of all its customers.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
In today's Law Next, many believe that generative AI will fundamentally transform howlegal work gets done.
And that is particularly so in the high stakes world of document review and e-discovery.
Now, the e-discovery company Reveal Data has made what might be considered a boldstatement about its confidence in that future, announcing not only the September launch of
(00:24):
its new gen AI review platform called AGI, it's A-J-I.
but also its decision to offer it completely free through the end of 2025 so that quote,the entire legal community gets to explore and master the next era in gen AI review
innovation.
(00:44):
Reveals founder and CEO Wendell Jesus says this moment represents more than just a productlaunch for him.
It's personal.
Having started his career three decades ago, delivering photocopies to Chicago law firms.
JISA sees this transformative moment as the legal industry's opportunity to becometechnology trailblazers rather than laggards.
(01:06):
today's show, I'm joined by JISA, as well as Reveal's Chief Technology Officer, MatthewBrothers-McGrew, to discuss their vision for democratizing AI in the legal profession,
other addressing concerns about defensibility and court acceptance, and why they believethis technology will impact the legal industry more than any other.
(01:27):
We recorded this just a few days before Ilticon, where these themes are certain todominate conversations among legal technology leaders.
I'm Bob Ambroci.
You're listening to Law Next, the podcast that features the innovators and entrepreneurswho are driving what's next in law.
Before we get to any of that, please take this moment to hear from the sponsors who sogenerously support this podcast.
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(03:04):
Now let's get to today's conversation.
Wendell, Matthew, welcome to Law Next.
Hi Bob, how are you doing today?
Thanks for having us.
Good to see you again, Wendell and Matthew.
Good to meet you.
I don't think we ever had a chance to talk before, but good to see you.
So as we are speaking, we are just a few days before Ilticon.
This will probably be going up actually during Ilticon.
(03:28):
I don't know if that's good or bad because it would be so busy, but they'll listen to iteventually.
But as we are in this run up to Ilticon, you have just announced the
imminent launch coming in September of Aji, your generative AI powered document reviewplatform.
(03:48):
And you also made a kind of a notable announcement about it, which is that you're going tobe offering free access to it through the end of the year.
And I kind of want to start with you because I was intrigued by your post yesterday onLinkedIn in which you said, quote, today's announcement is a personal one.
So what made it personal to you?
(04:09):
So Bob, what's interesting is that I started in this industry as a 22 year old kiddelivering photocopies to law firms in Chicago.
when I was, what's that?
No one knows anymore, right?
I mean literally like photocopies of fax paper, we got more money for those, right?
(04:32):
And it's been such, it's been a 30 year journey for me.
And it's one of those things where,
I've gone through the good times, the bad times, the medium times.
I've met tremendous people in this industry over the years and there's always been thischallenge where people say the legal industry is slow to adopt technology.
(04:55):
I've heard this from the earliest days to the most recent days.
However, in the last 12 to 18 months, whether you're talking to investors or you'retalking to
other CEOs or founders, or you're speaking to peers in the industry itself, attorneys,investigators, it doesn't really matter.
(05:17):
More and more people have recognized the fact that it's a requirement now.
And I feel like it's one of those things where we've gotten to a point where theindividuals who are using the technology are now the decision makers.
And this is a moment in time where if we come together as an industry,
and we work as one, not separately, we have a unique opportunity to put the legal world ina situation to where we're looked as a trailblazer in how to use technology.
(05:49):
Because technology like Aji and others, quite frankly, is such a good strategic fit forour industry, we believe it revealed, and I personally believe that the legal industry
itself will be impacted more than any other industry in the world.
And I don't know if that's because we have been slow to adopt technology.
(06:09):
I don't know if that's because data volumes are exploding and different types of sourcesare exploding.
But what I'll tell you is that for a kid that grew up delivering boxes in blizzards inChicago to now being the founder of what we believe is the most, one of the most, I'll
take a step back from that.
One of the most significant technology companies in the legal industry today in 2025.
(06:36):
It's been a journey and that journey is personal.
And the people that I've met along the way, that, you know, over the years, like 30 years,the long time, the people I've met, care about them.
I care about the industry.
I'm personally and emotionally invested in what we're doing.
And I'm just proud of the fact that something that has been created from nothing intosomething great with many challenges and many scar, lots of scar tissue has a seat at the
(07:05):
table.
our industry, if we come together as one and we communicate together, know, whoever I geton a call, whether it's AJ or Phil or Eric or Jonathan or Mike, Williams, it doesn't
matter, right?
We've got to work together.
For people who don't know, you're rattling off the names of the CEOs of other e-discoverycompanies.
(07:27):
Yeah, there's no there's no look you could look at every industry the NFL the NHL meanlook at this like you always see people shaking hands at halftime after the game and
that's where we're at We're at an inflection point where we need to work together and weneed to push this forward because this is unique You've been in the industry for a while
Matthew you've been in the industry Well, the three of us know that it's gonna take morethan just one of us It's gonna take all of us and that's why it's personal maybe because I
(07:52):
came from the bottom of the barrel You know when you're delivering photocopies for icon
You've got to speak with the partners, you've got to speak with the associates, theparalegals, the front desk people, the security guards to sneak in, steal the phone books,
right, to call the lawyers.
You've got to meet with the loading dock people.
And going through that journey over the years and being a part of it and seeing theadoption of technology.
(08:14):
And again, I say this with as much humility as possible.
Being a part of that and influencing that is...
It's one of my crowning moments in my career, quite frankly.
Yeah.
I think that the moment is now.
Yeah, well, it's interesting.
I have also been in the legal tech industry for 30 plus years, I hate to say.
(08:36):
What's interesting, I think, about where we're at right now is, as you say, it feels likewe're on the cost more than on the cost.
We're crossing over, I guess, the cost of something new.
But Companies Such as Reveal is a company that had...
has had an established reputation as a leader in using AI in e-discovery and documentreview and investigations.
(08:59):
Now you're coming out with this new generative AI product, as you say, others in theindustry are coming out with their generative AI products.
Matthew, I'm curious from your perspective, how does GenAI kind of change the game fore-discovery?
I mean, let's take a step back.
know, AI is changing all industries.
(09:21):
It's changing the world.
mean, look around.
This is the technological revolution of our time, right?
You go all the way back to the industrial revolution.
This is our industrial revolution.
And it's changing.
What's interesting and what's great about
(09:44):
about the moment in which we live, and Wendell already touched on this, is that it's notlike we're having to go teach people about LLMs and AI, right?
They're actually getting to use it day in and day out.
They're getting to understand this technology in all facets of their life.
(10:10):
And I think that's one of the interesting things that we talk about a lot internally.
What Wendell said is that he's having conversations with other CEOs and other leaders inthe industry.
we actually need each other in order uh to show the power of this technology.
But one of the things that we have talked about and the word that we use quite frequentlyis democratize.
(10:36):
Mm-hmm.
from our perspective, we don't want to take this technology and put a box around it.
We know that just like computers did in the eighties, I I lived through the eighties and Iheard, you know, my parents and all of my family members and my parents' friends,
computers are gonna replace our jobs, right?
(10:58):
Now that clearly didn't live up to, you know, to all of the hype during that era.
And you're hearing a lot of that now.
what the reality is going to be is just like with computers, it's going to allow people tofocus on more complicated problems or to offer more value to their customers rather than
having to focus on, you know, document, know, single document review, going doc to doc, 60documents an hour.
(11:25):
Now you can focus on what are the more complicated, how do I actually present a bettercase?
How can I understand what the logistics of my case are?
And Reveal has been on the forefront of AI for the last 15 years through BrainSpace andReveal AI.
We are the recognized industry leader and LLM is just that next evolution.
(11:51):
And so the announcement we made earlier this week is about this idea of democratization,making sure that folks get comfortable.
with the technology ah in the context of the legal space.
Is that why you're offering it for free for a period of time?
We don't say about that Bob.
That's a great question.
(12:11):
And that was, you know, that was a board discussion at reveal about about going throughthis with 2025.
But I'll use a very simple example.
Every email I send now I pump through chat GPT and went before I started using chat GPTand began before I knew to put remove M dashes right.
I would use I was using the free model and I was becoming better and better at it.
(12:33):
And you think about things like that.
When you're not paying for something and you're able to become an expert in it, I thinkit's very empowering.
And so for us to be able to give this industry that I am personally indebted to, my familyis personally indebted to, this company is personally indebted to, we need to invest in
the community first and then we will benefit in the long run.
(12:56):
But when you invest in something, you can't do it with restrictions.
You can't do it that way.
So what we need to do is we need to say, become experts in this, learn to use it.
We're all going to stumble.
We all live in glass houses.
None of this software is perfect.
We recognize that.
Everyone else should recognize that.
But as you're learning it, when you do invest in it, when you go to get your budgetapprovals, this, that, or the other, you're going to know how to use it.
(13:21):
You're going to be able to accelerate the progress with it and drive real amplification ina shorter period of time.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Tell me a little bit more.
I told you before we started recording, I don't want to get into technical details toomuch, but tell me a little bit more about what Aji is, what its capabilities are going to
be, how it's going to be different or integrate with what you're already doing in terms ofyour existing platform.
(13:46):
So the way we've approached uh Aji uh is distinct from how some others are approaching uhGen.ai review.
We understand the context of the legal space.
We use off-shelf LLMs, just like most folks do, but it's really about the workflow.
(14:07):
It is about how you integrate uh the human with the technology.
um And in fact, we uh have a patent pending uh workflow that we built around Aji.
The big fear that we've heard from the industry is, a couple of fears.
One is it's not tested.
(14:29):
No court has really accepted it.
And the way that we've tried to address that as we've designed and rolled out Aji is bybuilding all of the statistics and on all of the time
proven capabilities that are already accepted by the court around this new technology.
(14:49):
So we have provided the ability for someone to run F1 scores and recall and precision.
The same thing that they already have proven to the court is around the classic AI modelsand how they prove the efficacy of those models to the court and how they negotiate with
the other side to accept that technology.
(15:11):
So we understand that the context is that folks want to use the technology.
We want to make sure that it is defensible.
So defense, defensibility is a key player here.
The second is it's about cost.
know, and obviously we're so committed to the technology that we want people to use it.
(15:33):
We're giving it away for free this year.
We want to make sure that people are not afraid to use the technology.
And one of the ways that we've done that is by building in what we call a calibrationworkflow.
And the calibration workflow is where you are essentially working hand in hand with theAI.
(15:54):
You're defining what it is that you're looking for.
You might take your RFP, plug in all of the paragraphs from your RFP.
The AI is actually going to then look at your requests and give you suggestions and say,you know what?
Maybe I don't quite understand that sentence you just told me.
Give me a little bit more detail about that.
(16:14):
perhaps, you know, turn, you need to define what this acronym is that you're using.
So the LLM is actually evaluating what you're telling it before you look at a singledocument and telling you what's good and what's bad about the way you're interacting with
me.
And then you have, then you sit there and you iterate with it, with the AI to refine whatyou're asking for.
(16:37):
when the AI is comfortable that your requests are right, you then are choosing what wecall a calibration set.
And what's unique about how we're doing it is, I think we've all been there, right?
And we want a control set.
I have 10 million documents in a case.
How do you actually go pull a control set that is not just a bunch of complete irrelevantjunk?
(17:03):
A control set's best when you have
some documents that are responsive, some that are non-responsive, some that fit in themiddle.
So we actually are building this on top of uh an AI product that we released about 18months ago called Ask.
Ask is an AI search platform where you can ask natural language questions of your data.
(17:26):
And so, Aji is actually going to uh Ask and saying, here's what the user is looking tofind.
uh using AGI, give me 15 documents or 20 documents that are highly responsive to theseissues and find 15 or 20 documents that are not, give me some documents in the middle.
So that way you have a calibration set of roughly, let's say 100 documents.
(17:49):
And then you have a reviewer review those 100 documents.
And then we're comparing your response to the response of the AI.
And then there's an iterative process where
uh The AI didn't say it said they're actually looking at the disagreements and says humansaid this was responsive.
(18:10):
The AI said this is not responsive.
Why?
And the AI will say, well, if you had made changes to your prompt to, you know, add thissentence or to modify it in some way, I would have found that document responsive.
And so it's actually working with you hand in hand in order to be able to fine tune.
exactly what you're asking the AI to find within your document set.
(18:34):
And so only once you have reached the end, right, and you feel that you're getting goodrecall and good precision, then you would start to run it across, let's say, a larger set
of 5,000.
And then you validate it.
And then if you're comfortable with the results, you can do it on a much larger set, yourmillion or 10 million document case.
And so you don't have to waste a bunch of time and
(18:58):
and potentially money and effort and potentially also get bad results on the other side ofthat.
We want to do small targeted work upfront.
Let the LLM work with you as a partner in order to be able to get the best results at theend.
So it sounds like you're using the LLM as a supplement, in effect, to more traditional TARmethods.
(19:21):
uh It's not replacing TAR, it's enhancing TAR.
that fair to say?
Amplifying.
Amplify, yeah.
Maybe we should have called it amplify.
I don't know.
Yeah, well, that's back.
There's a lot of conversation we had I mean we we talked a lot about this as we Bring thisto market.
We were very clear.
We do not want aji to replace the reviewer.
(19:44):
Mm-hmm Look, I mean 20 years down the road.
Maybe the markets ready for that You know, I think as people become more comfortable justlike they were the computer revolution I think there will be a natural progression towards
it, but that's not what where we want this technology to be today
We want it to truly be your partner.
And in fact, you know, I talk about one potential workflow, but we, we build three or fourworkflows because we know that some folks are going to want to use it as QC.
(20:12):
Some folks are going to going to want to use it for, for traditional review.
Some people are going to want to use it for privilege review.
There's we've added a lot of flexibility because we, know that the technology is early andwe know that our customers are probably going to be more creative than we are.
So we wanted to give them more tools than the toolbox and then work with them closely tounderstand how we can evolve this to become a better tool down the road.
(20:39):
And in fact, you brought up one point around augmenting some of the AI that we currentlyhave.
Also part of our patent pending technology is what we call hybrid mode.
uh Where we're actually using the LLM as an agent uh to train a classical AI model.
So the AM models that everyone knows and loves today and have used in our product and manyothers.
(21:05):
Because it loves, maybe, an overstatement, but I don't know.
My wife knows and loves me too.
But the thing is the courts, the courts trustees.
So really want to accelerate your review, but you maybe this isn't the case.
You case, you want to test this, you know, before court.
Then what you do is you can actually use the LLM to take basically batches of documents,you know, 50, 100 at a time, train the classic LLM until you reach a specific F1 score.
(21:35):
And then now you can take that.
classic AI model and use that to score all of the other documents in your case.
So using the LLM to create the model that you would build by hand today.
So again, we want to provide a lot of different tools and pathways and workflows for ourcustomers and then evolve that over the course of the next 10 years to really understand
(21:59):
how we can address their needs as they get more interesting and complex.
They give me
technology.
Something I haven't asked you yet is where did the name come from?
boy.
So that's an interesting question that is kind of funny story.
(22:19):
It also shows some of the more entrepreneurial, our entrepreneurial roots are still atreveal even though we are at the scale we are.
Originally, we had three names that we were thinking about.
We were thinking about ask and answer.
Answer was gonna be AI and instead of spelling it out, answer was gonna be AI answer.
And then,
(22:40):
I can't remember, there was another one I can't remember, and the other one was Aji.
And when we were in my room, kind of like whiteboarding it with the marketing team andsome of the product folks, they're like, I'm like, what is Aji?
And they're like, oh, it's justice for AI or AI justice.
And I was like, oh, I like, I like that.
Because it kind of fits with our democratize the practice of law and all this stuff.
And as people kept asking about it, asking about it, asking about it, I remember someonein our company was like, was not in the know, was like, you know, it kind of looks like a
(23:08):
scramble of your last name.
And I was like, I was like, you think?
And then we noticed it.
So to this day, no one sort of owned up to the fact that it might be a scramble of GCNremoving the app.
I'm still, I'm still being told that it's it's justice for AI, whether that's true or not,we don't know.
Maybe we'll ask Aji in the end and they can answer the question.
(23:29):
That's also the name of a hot pepper, I think, right?
This is never happened.
Yeah.
Something else I want to ask you about a point you made.
think Matthew made the point about cost is one of the issues here.
ah again, I understand you're offering it for free for a period of time.
ah back when you acquired Logical 2023, think it was, uh one of the points you made thenis you really wanted to be kind of a platform for all lawyers, for all practitioners,
(23:58):
smaller firms, medium firms, large firms, enterprise.
So what are you going to be doing now to make this technology available to firms of allsizes and lawyers and all types of practices?
I love this question.
Matthew, if you don't mind, I'm going to pontificate here.
I will tell you, Bob, that the acquisition of Logico has been incredibly successful.
(24:23):
It'll be two years ago on August 15.
the team, I'll forever be indebted to Andy for allowing us to sort of take Logico to wherewe've taken it.
It's grown incredibly over the past two years.
that customer base, we love the purity of logical.
know logical will never be revealed.
And a lot of people say, hey, know, reveals the crown jewel.
(24:46):
That's absolutely false.
We are adamant about the fact that we have two distinct e-discovery platforms that servetwo distinct use cases.
Pick your poison, freedom of choice.
Very similar to RPD, Reveal Private Deployment.
What's really important to us is to make sure that
whether you've got a, whether you're a single attorney in St.
(25:10):
Thomas or you're Kirkland and Ellis in Chicago, it doesn't matter.
You all have the right and available access to this artificial intelligence, Aji, becauseif we don't give that to everyone, then we are doing a disservice to the legal community.
This is meant to empower everyone, not just the AmLaw 100.
(25:33):
And I will say that this is one of the single most, this is one of the things I personallyam most passionate about because when you look at the industry, there's the forgotten few
and the forgotten few are some of these small law firms that still pay their bills.
They still have a need and giving them the opportunity to leverage this and save time tospend for their customers or to spend time with their families is a very powerful.
(26:02):
opportunity for us to give to folks.
so we've got with reveal it'll be coming out in September.
I speak in in I will be unclear on this, but the hope is that the logical customer basewill have access to Aji in Q1.
You know, we really believe investing in innovation and sharing that.
But what we want to be looked at is an illegal AI company that has this single AI enginethat is fueling both logical and reveal.
(26:31):
in equal parts so that all of those customers, no matter what platform they're using atReveal, they get access to Azure.
So starts on reveal, but then by Q1 next year, probably available within logical.
That's what I've learned.
Never make a promise on a date.
Always give a broad 90-day window.
Yeah, especially when you're being recorded.
(26:53):
Yeah, exactly.
And to be clear, it's because we're building new functionality, whether that's Ask orwhether that's Aji or whatever comes next.
We're designing it in such a way that it is going to be able to be consumable in both thereveal platform and in the logical platform.
as an example, uh Ask in logical is actually going to be coming out for early access inthe next couple of weeks.
(27:20):
And it'll be GA towards the end of the year.
This is all part of our roadmap and our plan.
We want to make sure that customers, whether they're using logical or reveal, have accessto the same AI technology.
You know, Bob, just to add to that, like, you when I look out my window right now, you'vegot the people at 30 North LaSalle Street, where it's all these smaller law firms.
(27:43):
The difference this will make to folks like that is incredible.
And I love the fact that as a company, as a team, as an organization, we're investing innot just the Amla 100 and Amla 200, or the Fortune 500, we're investing in everyone to
give them access to this so that they can do what they need to do.
(28:04):
and we can amplify their process as much as we are everyone else's.
This is personal for all of us at Reveal.
Yeah.
been talking with Wendell Gisa and Matthew Brothers-McGrew from Reveal about theirupcoming GEN.AI platform, AGI, and their decision to offer it free through 2025.
(28:27):
We explored how they're building defensibility into GEN.AI review through calibrationworkflows and hybrid modes, and their vision for democratizing this technology across
firms of all sizes.
When we return, we're going dive into Reveal's other recent announcement concerning itsdoubling down on support for its customers
(28:47):
who prefer to host their software on premises rather than in the cloud.
It's a strategy that seemingly puts the company at odds with competitors such asRelativity, but Jesus says it all goes back to their core philosophy of democratizing
access to technology.
We'll also look both back and forward at Reveal's acquisition strategy and what the futureholds for this rapidly evolving company.
(29:12):
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(30:42):
Welcome back to Law Next, I'm Bob Ambroci and I'm speaking with Wendell Gisa, the founderand CEO of Reveal, and Matthew Brothers-McGrew, the company's chief technology officer.
Before the break, we were discussing their new generative AI platform, Oji, and howthey're working to make advanced AI accessible to legal teams of all sizes.
Now I want to shift our focus to infrastructure and deployment options.
(31:06):
While many in the industry are pushing toward cloud-only solutions,
Reveal has recently taken a different path, launching a new private deployment option tosupport customers wherever they want to use Reveal's software, whether it's in the cloud,
on-premises, or hybrid.
As we return to the show, that's where we pick up.
(31:30):
I want to switch topics a little bit.
You just alluded to private deployment.
And just a couple of months ago, I had Phil Saunders, who you mentioned, the CEO ofRelativity on this podcast to talk about his announcement that starting in 2028,
Relativity is going to basically require that all new matters be hosted in the cloud, noton premises.
(31:52):
You kind of took a different tack this week, or I guess last week or so, announcing thisprivate
deployment group, I think, within your company and that you're going to be supportingcompanies uh basically wherever they want to be uh hosting, whether it's on premises or in
the cloud.
So with so many in the industry saying the future is in the cloud, especially with Gen.aiand the capabilities of being in the cloud and able, uh why take that position?
(32:22):
Why take that tack?
Here, Matthew, I'll let you talk technically in a second, but like, look, from ourperspective, we've always believed in, back to the word, democratize, right?
And we heard our customers.
believe, look, we believe the future is in the cloud as well.
We get that.
And we're not going to invest anything less in that.
(32:42):
But there's also a moment where you've got to recognize that there needs to be a bridgefor folks.
And that bridge can be used by folks when they want to be used.
We made the decision.
to invest in and make operational decisions to invest more of our profitability into RPDso that our customers had the opportunity to take the bridge they wanted to go.
(33:05):
Now again, I will be very adamant.
We are a cloud SaaS software company and we always will be that at our roots.
We feel responsible to listen to our customers and give them what they want.
They've built their businesses.
in different situations, their customers might want this, they may not be ready.
Giving folks an optionality is at our core as a company and a business culture and abusiness philosophy.
(33:30):
So RPD is also very near and to our heart.
doesn't fall in depth years with our board because there is a cost to it, but ourcustomers are happy about it.
And we feel like if folks need to move more slowly into something, at Reveal,
It's my personal responsibility to the community and also the company's responsibility togive folks the opportunity to crawl, walk, run to where they're going.
(33:58):
Look, this may be a disaster.
Three or four people might sign up for it.
That is what it is.
We've invested in it the way we wanted to invest in it.
We want to be there as a resource for folks.
Everyone else might decide, you know what, we're not going to go that direction.
We're going to go this direction.
But from our perspective or the industry, it was our responsibility to give them access tosomething.
that they can't get in other areas.
(34:20):
Is this a response to relativity's move or was this in the works already?
Look, mean, I think that it's all, I think that it's a good question.
I'm a straightforward guy, so I'm going to give you straightforward answer.
I think that we heard enough people that were unhappy about the announcement thatRelativity made.
(34:41):
We already knew it was coming.
So we were already exploring the possibility of this, that it absolutely influenced whatwe did.
Because we feel like if some of those customers can move into RPD,
and we can get an opportunity to get them into Aji or Logical or Reveal Enterprise, we'vegot an opportunity to get those customers.
That's not the only reason though.
That's part of the reason, but it's not the only reason.
(35:02):
And Matthew Wendell said he'd leave the technical parts to you, uh why are the technicalparts to Adam?
Is this primarily a service that you're offering or are there technical components aswell?
I think that's important.
Let's talk about the infrastructure team we built.
So before we get into the technical piece, I do want to reiterate one thing that Wendellsaid, which is RPD is an embodiment of the ethos we've always had it reveal.
(35:27):
was since, you know, when I were here and when it was just single digit, you know, don'tforget, please, right?
We're, we've been here a long time and we used to have a tagline called.
Matthew, to be clear, I was there when it was a single.
But you know, oh you know, we used to have a tagline called reveal everywhere.
(35:49):
I think this is, this is actually the, you know, this is the, the sort of long-termembodiment of that philosophy, which is, you know, we want to bring the technology to you
where, you, wherever you need.
So our RPD, so I'll get into a couple of the technical details.
The, is a, it is a software product that we're bringing to market, but the
(36:13):
piece that I want to be very clear about is that we are not bringing a separate softwareproduct market.
It is a single code base.
So the Refuel platform is a modern review platform.
It is cloud-based, it is built on technologies that most companies these days are runningin their own, whether it's their own data center, whether it's running in their own cloud,
(36:41):
whether it's Azure or GCP.
or Oracle, this is not an on-prem play.
This is truly a bring reveal wherever you want to put it play.
if you want to put it in you can put it in your own cloud.
If it's on-prem, put it on-prem.
If it's an appliance, put it on an appliance.
But it is a fully containerized platform that gives it the flexibility to be able to belocated wherever you would like to put it.
(37:06):
we've always been very strategic about how we build our technology.
so that we have that optionality.
Matt, sorry, real quickly, just to interrupt you.
You know, one thing, Bob, that's really interesting that we've done, we've built a reallygood relationship with our AWS Reseller Mission.
They actually have a price sheet.
After four years, we've got this price where folks can go directly to our reseller andthey can get wholesale pricing and work directly with AWS and Mission, which I love.
(37:34):
I love offering that optionality and sharing the wealth and success of hosting this data.
Sorry, Matt, I wanted to add that.
So RPD is about, it's really about productizing the offering of bringing it to a privatedeployment.
ensuring that we have great documentation, great user experience, that we have thesesupport staff, the deployment personnel to be able to assist our customers with
(38:02):
deployment.
To be clear, we don't want to be a managed service within your environment.
There are plenty of other managed service providers out there that will help you with yourinfrastructure if that's what you need.
But we know that we need to be able to support internal teams or our infrastructureproviders in order to be able to deploy and manage our software wherever you want to
(38:27):
deploy it.
Yeah.
All right.
That makes sense.
Our time is running and I have so many things I wanted to ask you about.
guess I just want to also just kind of follow up a little bit on obviously the last fiveto six years of Reveal has been in some ways characterized by some of the major
acquisitions you've done.
(38:50):
There was NexLP in 2020, there was BrainSpace in 2021, then sort of the dual acquisitionof Logical and iPro and
2023.
I wonder if you can just kind of talk a little bit about what that's meant for where thecompany is today.
And two-part question, are you anticipating further acquisitions coming in the nearfuture?
(39:14):
Yeah, so well, it's funny because we did next lpm brain space really within 90 days ofeach other Not dissimilar from what we did with with iPro and and logic
announced late 2022.
mean late.
yeah, this case really was like 75 days apart, but but
by K1.
m
Yeah, people thought we were nuts, but we did it, right?
(39:35):
And um look, I think that in any world, we've got a buy, build, partner mentality.
And I think that the last couple of years, we made the three acquisitions, Ona, Logical,and iPro.
And you have to go through an integration process.
In parallel, we were launching our FedRAMP certification.
(39:58):
We were launching AGI, RPD, all these different things.
And now that we're kind of coming out of the messy middle, as I like to call it, from anintegration perspective, it's not just about product integration and technical
integration.
It's about operational integration.
It's about cultural integration.
Two-year anniversary will be August 15th.
Owen, think, was May of 2024.
(40:21):
So a little bit more recently, but also a smaller company.
you know, look, the hope is that we continue to grow organically.
Right now we are exploding.
It's the right time to explode.
that's primarily driven by, I think, our dual platform approach, the single AI engine.
But I do think that in the coming, you know, two to three years, we need to look at boththe more transformational acquisitions that are out there to consider this an industry
(40:49):
that can be consolidated, whether it's in the practice of law or the business of law even,and continue to build our momentum.
But we also need to look at some of these smaller companies.
And, you know, we've gotten away from
partnering with smaller technology companies that are very smart.
We've gotten away from, we'll be announcing a partnership next week at Elta, and it's aperfect example of a smaller company that is a really solid technology with a great
(41:18):
go-to-market strategy.
We need to look at those and say, how can this help our customers?
How can this help our platforms?
And where do we see fits?
So we're rolling that out to where we can start to build more of those partnerships out.
And look, in reality, we are backed by private equity.
So those partnerships will evolve.
Some will end up as acquisitions, some will not.
But I think that we need to be realized that we were built both organically andinorganically, and our future will remain the same.
(41:44):
It's just the past couple of years, we made such transformational acquisitions that it wasimportant for us to get our sea legs underneath us, stabilize the operations internally,
both culturally and technically.
And then now that we've come up for air and the water's no longer choppy, hey, let's go.
Like, you've got to be bold to win big.
(42:05):
And if you want to win big, this is our moment.
This is why we need the entire industry getting behind Reveal and the other companies whenwe've got an opportunity as an industry to become the leader in AI globally.
oh
Yeah, I know we're running really short on time here.
just want to, what's ahead?
(42:26):
What's not just the next year, but the next five years look like for Reveal.
I mean, pour gasoline on reveal and go as fast as possible and leverage our partnerships,leverage our customers and accelerate adoption of AI.
It's as simple as that.
Sounds good.
Anything else that either of you want to mention that I haven't asked about?
(42:47):
well, I know there's a lot more probably that we haven't been able to talk about in thistime, but anything you're just dying to point out before we wrap up?
Yeah, I mean, look, I'd like to compliment Matthew and his team.
You know, a lot of times people associate Reveal with me, but, you know, Matthew Broder'sMagrue has been with us now for almost 12 years and has moved up the ranks to CTO.
(43:09):
And without him and his team and the innovation that they've created and the integrationthey've created, none of this is possible.
Right?
My job's easy.
His job and the other leaders in the organization's job is difficult.
and the employees that have been integrated, they've really bought into the system, thedirection.
(43:31):
A lot of that success is attributed to the guy on this call.
And I'm driven every day by uh bringing great technology to the legal space.
um every day is exciting, and it'll be exciting to see what the next five years brings.
Well, Matthew, when your next salary review comes up, play him that tape that he just...
(43:54):
You gotta pay to play.
Well, Wendell, Matthew, thank you so much for being on the show.
Thanks, Bob.
This is great.
We really appreciate the time.
Yeah, I hope to see you both wandering around National Harbor.
See you next week.
Yeah, let's try and shoot me a text or something.
All right, see ya.
(44:15):
Thanks for listening to today's show.
Hope you enjoyed it.
If you'd to share your own thoughts or comments, please do so by messaging me on LinkedInor other social media, or just email me directly, ambroji at gmail.com.
If you're a fan of the show, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts.
Law Next is a production of Law Next Media.
I'm your host, Bob Ambroji.
Please join us again next time for another episode of Law Next.
In today's Law Next, many believe that generative AI will fundamentally transform howlegal work gets done.
And that is particularly so in the high stakes world of document review and e-discovery.
Now, the e-discovery company Reveal Data has made what might be considered a boldstatement about its confidence in that future, announcing not only the September launch of
(00:24):
its new gen AI review platform called AGI, it's A-J-I.
but also its decision to offer it completely free through the end of 2025 so that quote,the entire legal community gets to explore and master the next era in gen AI review
innovation.
(00:44):
Reveals founder and CEO Wendell Jesus says this moment represents more than just a productlaunch for him.
It's personal.
Having started his career three decades ago, delivering photocopies to Chicago law firms.
JISA sees this transformative moment as the legal industry's opportunity to becometechnology trailblazers rather than laggards.
(01:06):
today's show, I'm joined by JISA, as well as Reveal's Chief Technology Officer, MatthewBrothers-McGrew, to discuss their vision for democratizing AI in the legal profession,
other addressing concerns about defensibility and court acceptance, and why they believethis technology will impact the legal industry more than any other.
(01:27):
We recorded this just a few days before Ilticon, where these themes are certain todominate conversations among legal technology leaders.
I'm Bob Ambroci.
You're listening to Law Next, the podcast that features the innovators and entrepreneurswho are driving what's next in law.
Before we get to any of that, please take this moment to hear from the sponsors who sogenerously support this podcast.
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dot com
(03:04):
Now let's get to today's conversation.
Wendell, Matthew, welcome to Law Next.
Hi Bob, how are you doing today?
Thanks for having us.
Good to see you again, Wendell and Matthew.
Good to meet you.
I don't think we ever had a chance to talk before, but good to see you.
So as we are speaking, we are just a few days before Ilticon.
This will probably be going up actually during Ilticon.
(03:28):
I don't know if that's good or bad because it would be so busy, but they'll listen to iteventually.
But as we are in this run up to Ilticon, you have just announced the
imminent launch coming in September of Aji, your generative AI powered document reviewplatform.
(03:48):
And you also made a kind of a notable announcement about it, which is that you're going tobe offering free access to it through the end of the year.
And I kind of want to start with you because I was intrigued by your post yesterday onLinkedIn in which you said, quote, today's announcement is a personal one.
So what made it personal to you?
(04:09):
So Bob, what's interesting is that I started in this industry as a 22 year old kiddelivering photocopies to law firms in Chicago.
when I was, what's that?
No one knows anymore, right?
I mean literally like photocopies of fax paper, we got more money for those, right?
(04:32):
And it's been such, it's been a 30 year journey for me.
And it's one of those things where,
I've gone through the good times, the bad times, the medium times.
I've met tremendous people in this industry over the years and there's always been thischallenge where people say the legal industry is slow to adopt technology.
(04:55):
I've heard this from the earliest days to the most recent days.
However, in the last 12 to 18 months, whether you're talking to investors or you'retalking to
other CEOs or founders, or you're speaking to peers in the industry itself, attorneys,investigators, it doesn't really matter.
(05:17):
More and more people have recognized the fact that it's a requirement now.
And I feel like it's one of those things where we've gotten to a point where theindividuals who are using the technology are now the decision makers.
And this is a moment in time where if we come together as an industry,
and we work as one, not separately, we have a unique opportunity to put the legal world ina situation to where we're looked as a trailblazer in how to use technology.
(05:49):
Because technology like Aji and others, quite frankly, is such a good strategic fit forour industry, we believe it revealed, and I personally believe that the legal industry
itself will be impacted more than any other industry in the world.
And I don't know if that's because we have been slow to adopt technology.
(06:09):
I don't know if that's because data volumes are exploding and different types of sourcesare exploding.
But what I'll tell you is that for a kid that grew up delivering boxes in blizzards inChicago to now being the founder of what we believe is the most, one of the most, I'll
take a step back from that.
One of the most significant technology companies in the legal industry today in 2025.
(06:36):
It's been a journey and that journey is personal.
And the people that I've met along the way, that, you know, over the years, like 30 years,the long time, the people I've met, care about them.
I care about the industry.
I'm personally and emotionally invested in what we're doing.
And I'm just proud of the fact that something that has been created from nothing intosomething great with many challenges and many scar, lots of scar tissue has a seat at the
(07:05):
table.
our industry, if we come together as one and we communicate together, know, whoever I geton a call, whether it's AJ or Phil or Eric or Jonathan or Mike, Williams, it doesn't
matter, right?
We've got to work together.
For people who don't know, you're rattling off the names of the CEOs of other e-discoverycompanies.
(07:27):
Yeah, there's no there's no look you could look at every industry the NFL the NHL meanlook at this like you always see people shaking hands at halftime after the game and
that's where we're at We're at an inflection point where we need to work together and weneed to push this forward because this is unique You've been in the industry for a while
Matthew you've been in the industry Well, the three of us know that it's gonna take morethan just one of us It's gonna take all of us and that's why it's personal maybe because I
(07:52):
came from the bottom of the barrel You know when you're delivering photocopies for icon
You've got to speak with the partners, you've got to speak with the associates, theparalegals, the front desk people, the security guards to sneak in, steal the phone books,
right, to call the lawyers.
You've got to meet with the loading dock people.
And going through that journey over the years and being a part of it and seeing theadoption of technology.
(08:14):
And again, I say this with as much humility as possible.
Being a part of that and influencing that is...
It's one of my crowning moments in my career, quite frankly.
Yeah.
I think that the moment is now.
Yeah, well, it's interesting.
I have also been in the legal tech industry for 30 plus years, I hate to say.
(08:36):
What's interesting, I think, about where we're at right now is, as you say, it feels likewe're on the cost more than on the cost.
We're crossing over, I guess, the cost of something new.
But Companies Such as Reveal is a company that had...
has had an established reputation as a leader in using AI in e-discovery and documentreview and investigations.
(08:59):
Now you're coming out with this new generative AI product, as you say, others in theindustry are coming out with their generative AI products.
Matthew, I'm curious from your perspective, how does GenAI kind of change the game fore-discovery?
I mean, let's take a step back.
know, AI is changing all industries.
(09:21):
It's changing the world.
mean, look around.
This is the technological revolution of our time, right?
You go all the way back to the industrial revolution.
This is our industrial revolution.
And it's changing.
What's interesting and what's great about
(09:44):
about the moment in which we live, and Wendell already touched on this, is that it's notlike we're having to go teach people about LLMs and AI, right?
They're actually getting to use it day in and day out.
They're getting to understand this technology in all facets of their life.
(10:10):
And I think that's one of the interesting things that we talk about a lot internally.
What Wendell said is that he's having conversations with other CEOs and other leaders inthe industry.
we actually need each other in order uh to show the power of this technology.
But one of the things that we have talked about and the word that we use quite frequentlyis democratize.
(10:36):
Mm-hmm.
from our perspective, we don't want to take this technology and put a box around it.
We know that just like computers did in the eighties, I I lived through the eighties and Iheard, you know, my parents and all of my family members and my parents' friends,
computers are gonna replace our jobs, right?
(10:58):
Now that clearly didn't live up to, you know, to all of the hype during that era.
And you're hearing a lot of that now.
what the reality is going to be is just like with computers, it's going to allow people tofocus on more complicated problems or to offer more value to their customers rather than
having to focus on, you know, document, know, single document review, going doc to doc, 60documents an hour.
(11:25):
Now you can focus on what are the more complicated, how do I actually present a bettercase?
How can I understand what the logistics of my case are?
And Reveal has been on the forefront of AI for the last 15 years through BrainSpace andReveal AI.
We are the recognized industry leader and LLM is just that next evolution.
(11:51):
And so the announcement we made earlier this week is about this idea of democratization,making sure that folks get comfortable.
with the technology ah in the context of the legal space.
Is that why you're offering it for free for a period of time?
We don't say about that Bob.
That's a great question.
(12:11):
And that was, you know, that was a board discussion at reveal about about going throughthis with 2025.
But I'll use a very simple example.
Every email I send now I pump through chat GPT and went before I started using chat GPTand began before I knew to put remove M dashes right.
I would use I was using the free model and I was becoming better and better at it.
(12:33):
And you think about things like that.
When you're not paying for something and you're able to become an expert in it, I thinkit's very empowering.
And so for us to be able to give this industry that I am personally indebted to, my familyis personally indebted to, this company is personally indebted to, we need to invest in
the community first and then we will benefit in the long run.
(12:56):
But when you invest in something, you can't do it with restrictions.
You can't do it that way.
So what we need to do is we need to say, become experts in this, learn to use it.
We're all going to stumble.
We all live in glass houses.
None of this software is perfect.
We recognize that.
Everyone else should recognize that.
But as you're learning it, when you do invest in it, when you go to get your budgetapprovals, this, that, or the other, you're going to know how to use it.
(13:21):
You're going to be able to accelerate the progress with it and drive real amplification ina shorter period of time.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Tell me a little bit more.
I told you before we started recording, I don't want to get into technical details toomuch, but tell me a little bit more about what Aji is, what its capabilities are going to
be, how it's going to be different or integrate with what you're already doing in terms ofyour existing platform.
(13:46):
So the way we've approached uh Aji uh is distinct from how some others are approaching uhGen.ai review.
We understand the context of the legal space.
We use off-shelf LLMs, just like most folks do, but it's really about the workflow.
(14:07):
It is about how you integrate uh the human with the technology.
um And in fact, we uh have a patent pending uh workflow that we built around Aji.
The big fear that we've heard from the industry is, a couple of fears.
One is it's not tested.
(14:29):
No court has really accepted it.
And the way that we've tried to address that as we've designed and rolled out Aji is bybuilding all of the statistics and on all of the time
proven capabilities that are already accepted by the court around this new technology.
(14:49):
So we have provided the ability for someone to run F1 scores and recall and precision.
The same thing that they already have proven to the court is around the classic AI modelsand how they prove the efficacy of those models to the court and how they negotiate with
the other side to accept that technology.
(15:11):
So we understand that the context is that folks want to use the technology.
We want to make sure that it is defensible.
So defense, defensibility is a key player here.
The second is it's about cost.
know, and obviously we're so committed to the technology that we want people to use it.
(15:33):
We're giving it away for free this year.
We want to make sure that people are not afraid to use the technology.
And one of the ways that we've done that is by building in what we call a calibrationworkflow.
And the calibration workflow is where you are essentially working hand in hand with theAI.
(15:54):
You're defining what it is that you're looking for.
You might take your RFP, plug in all of the paragraphs from your RFP.
The AI is actually going to then look at your requests and give you suggestions and say,you know what?
Maybe I don't quite understand that sentence you just told me.
Give me a little bit more detail about that.
(16:14):
perhaps, you know, turn, you need to define what this acronym is that you're using.
So the LLM is actually evaluating what you're telling it before you look at a singledocument and telling you what's good and what's bad about the way you're interacting with
me.
And then you have, then you sit there and you iterate with it, with the AI to refine whatyou're asking for.
(16:37):
when the AI is comfortable that your requests are right, you then are choosing what wecall a calibration set.
And what's unique about how we're doing it is, I think we've all been there, right?
And we want a control set.
I have 10 million documents in a case.
How do you actually go pull a control set that is not just a bunch of complete irrelevantjunk?
(17:03):
A control set's best when you have
some documents that are responsive, some that are non-responsive, some that fit in themiddle.
So we actually are building this on top of uh an AI product that we released about 18months ago called Ask.
Ask is an AI search platform where you can ask natural language questions of your data.
(17:26):
And so, Aji is actually going to uh Ask and saying, here's what the user is looking tofind.
uh using AGI, give me 15 documents or 20 documents that are highly responsive to theseissues and find 15 or 20 documents that are not, give me some documents in the middle.
So that way you have a calibration set of roughly, let's say 100 documents.
(17:49):
And then you have a reviewer review those 100 documents.
And then we're comparing your response to the response of the AI.
And then there's an iterative process where
uh The AI didn't say it said they're actually looking at the disagreements and says humansaid this was responsive.
(18:10):
The AI said this is not responsive.
Why?
And the AI will say, well, if you had made changes to your prompt to, you know, add thissentence or to modify it in some way, I would have found that document responsive.
And so it's actually working with you hand in hand in order to be able to fine tune.
exactly what you're asking the AI to find within your document set.
(18:34):
And so only once you have reached the end, right, and you feel that you're getting goodrecall and good precision, then you would start to run it across, let's say, a larger set
of 5,000.
And then you validate it.
And then if you're comfortable with the results, you can do it on a much larger set, yourmillion or 10 million document case.
And so you don't have to waste a bunch of time and
(18:58):
and potentially money and effort and potentially also get bad results on the other side ofthat.
We want to do small targeted work upfront.
Let the LLM work with you as a partner in order to be able to get the best results at theend.
So it sounds like you're using the LLM as a supplement, in effect, to more traditional TARmethods.
(19:21):
uh It's not replacing TAR, it's enhancing TAR.
that fair to say?
Amplifying.
Amplify, yeah.
Maybe we should have called it amplify.
I don't know.
Yeah, well, that's back.
There's a lot of conversation we had I mean we we talked a lot about this as we Bring thisto market.
We were very clear.
We do not want aji to replace the reviewer.
(19:44):
Mm-hmm Look, I mean 20 years down the road.
Maybe the markets ready for that You know, I think as people become more comfortable justlike they were the computer revolution I think there will be a natural progression towards
it, but that's not what where we want this technology to be today
We want it to truly be your partner.
And in fact, you know, I talk about one potential workflow, but we, we build three or fourworkflows because we know that some folks are going to want to use it as QC.
(20:12):
Some folks are going to going to want to use it for, for traditional review.
Some people are going to want to use it for privilege review.
There's we've added a lot of flexibility because we, know that the technology is early andwe know that our customers are probably going to be more creative than we are.
So we wanted to give them more tools than the toolbox and then work with them closely tounderstand how we can evolve this to become a better tool down the road.
(20:39):
And in fact, you brought up one point around augmenting some of the AI that we currentlyhave.
Also part of our patent pending technology is what we call hybrid mode.
uh Where we're actually using the LLM as an agent uh to train a classical AI model.
So the AM models that everyone knows and loves today and have used in our product and manyothers.
(21:05):
Because it loves, maybe, an overstatement, but I don't know.
My wife knows and loves me too.
But the thing is the courts, the courts trustees.
So really want to accelerate your review, but you maybe this isn't the case.
You case, you want to test this, you know, before court.
Then what you do is you can actually use the LLM to take basically batches of documents,you know, 50, 100 at a time, train the classic LLM until you reach a specific F1 score.
(21:35):
And then now you can take that.
classic AI model and use that to score all of the other documents in your case.
So using the LLM to create the model that you would build by hand today.
So again, we want to provide a lot of different tools and pathways and workflows for ourcustomers and then evolve that over the course of the next 10 years to really understand
(21:59):
how we can address their needs as they get more interesting and complex.
They give me
technology.
Something I haven't asked you yet is where did the name come from?
boy.
So that's an interesting question that is kind of funny story.
(22:19):
It also shows some of the more entrepreneurial, our entrepreneurial roots are still atreveal even though we are at the scale we are.
Originally, we had three names that we were thinking about.
We were thinking about ask and answer.
Answer was gonna be AI and instead of spelling it out, answer was gonna be AI answer.
And then,
(22:40):
I can't remember, there was another one I can't remember, and the other one was Aji.
And when we were in my room, kind of like whiteboarding it with the marketing team andsome of the product folks, they're like, I'm like, what is Aji?
And they're like, oh, it's justice for AI or AI justice.
And I was like, oh, I like, I like that.
Because it kind of fits with our democratize the practice of law and all this stuff.
And as people kept asking about it, asking about it, asking about it, I remember someonein our company was like, was not in the know, was like, you know, it kind of looks like a
(23:08):
scramble of your last name.
And I was like, I was like, you think?
And then we noticed it.
So to this day, no one sort of owned up to the fact that it might be a scramble of GCNremoving the app.
I'm still, I'm still being told that it's it's justice for AI, whether that's true or not,we don't know.
Maybe we'll ask Aji in the end and they can answer the question.
(23:29):
That's also the name of a hot pepper, I think, right?
This is never happened.
Yeah.
Something else I want to ask you about a point you made.
think Matthew made the point about cost is one of the issues here.
ah again, I understand you're offering it for free for a period of time.
ah back when you acquired Logical 2023, think it was, uh one of the points you made thenis you really wanted to be kind of a platform for all lawyers, for all practitioners,
(23:58):
smaller firms, medium firms, large firms, enterprise.
So what are you going to be doing now to make this technology available to firms of allsizes and lawyers and all types of practices?
I love this question.
Matthew, if you don't mind, I'm going to pontificate here.
I will tell you, Bob, that the acquisition of Logico has been incredibly successful.
(24:23):
It'll be two years ago on August 15.
the team, I'll forever be indebted to Andy for allowing us to sort of take Logico to wherewe've taken it.
It's grown incredibly over the past two years.
that customer base, we love the purity of logical.
know logical will never be revealed.
And a lot of people say, hey, know, reveals the crown jewel.
(24:46):
That's absolutely false.
We are adamant about the fact that we have two distinct e-discovery platforms that servetwo distinct use cases.
Pick your poison, freedom of choice.
Very similar to RPD, Reveal Private Deployment.
What's really important to us is to make sure that
whether you've got a, whether you're a single attorney in St.
(25:10):
Thomas or you're Kirkland and Ellis in Chicago, it doesn't matter.
You all have the right and available access to this artificial intelligence, Aji, becauseif we don't give that to everyone, then we are doing a disservice to the legal community.
This is meant to empower everyone, not just the AmLaw 100.
(25:33):
And I will say that this is one of the single most, this is one of the things I personallyam most passionate about because when you look at the industry, there's the forgotten few
and the forgotten few are some of these small law firms that still pay their bills.
They still have a need and giving them the opportunity to leverage this and save time tospend for their customers or to spend time with their families is a very powerful.
(26:02):
opportunity for us to give to folks.
so we've got with reveal it'll be coming out in September.
I speak in in I will be unclear on this, but the hope is that the logical customer basewill have access to Aji in Q1.
You know, we really believe investing in innovation and sharing that.
But what we want to be looked at is an illegal AI company that has this single AI enginethat is fueling both logical and reveal.
(26:31):
in equal parts so that all of those customers, no matter what platform they're using atReveal, they get access to Azure.
So starts on reveal, but then by Q1 next year, probably available within logical.
That's what I've learned.
Never make a promise on a date.
Always give a broad 90-day window.
Yeah, especially when you're being recorded.
(26:53):
Yeah, exactly.
And to be clear, it's because we're building new functionality, whether that's Ask orwhether that's Aji or whatever comes next.
We're designing it in such a way that it is going to be able to be consumable in both thereveal platform and in the logical platform.
as an example, uh Ask in logical is actually going to be coming out for early access inthe next couple of weeks.
(27:20):
And it'll be GA towards the end of the year.
This is all part of our roadmap and our plan.
We want to make sure that customers, whether they're using logical or reveal, have accessto the same AI technology.
You know, Bob, just to add to that, like, you when I look out my window right now, you'vegot the people at 30 North LaSalle Street, where it's all these smaller law firms.
(27:43):
The difference this will make to folks like that is incredible.
And I love the fact that as a company, as a team, as an organization, we're investing innot just the Amla 100 and Amla 200, or the Fortune 500, we're investing in everyone to
give them access to this so that they can do what they need to do.
(28:04):
and we can amplify their process as much as we are everyone else's.
This is personal for all of us at Reveal.
Yeah.
been talking with Wendell Gisa and Matthew Brothers-McGrew from Reveal about theirupcoming GEN.AI platform, AGI, and their decision to offer it free through 2025.
(28:27):
We explored how they're building defensibility into GEN.AI review through calibrationworkflows and hybrid modes, and their vision for democratizing this technology across
firms of all sizes.
When we return, we're going dive into Reveal's other recent announcement concerning itsdoubling down on support for its customers
(28:47):
who prefer to host their software on premises rather than in the cloud.
It's a strategy that seemingly puts the company at odds with competitors such asRelativity, but Jesus says it all goes back to their core philosophy of democratizing
access to technology.
We'll also look both back and forward at Reveal's acquisition strategy and what the futureholds for this rapidly evolving company.
(29:12):
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(30:42):
Welcome back to Law Next, I'm Bob Ambroci and I'm speaking with Wendell Gisa, the founderand CEO of Reveal, and Matthew Brothers-McGrew, the company's chief technology officer.
Before the break, we were discussing their new generative AI platform, Oji, and howthey're working to make advanced AI accessible to legal teams of all sizes.
Now I want to shift our focus to infrastructure and deployment options.
(31:06):
While many in the industry are pushing toward cloud-only solutions,
Reveal has recently taken a different path, launching a new private deployment option tosupport customers wherever they want to use Reveal's software, whether it's in the cloud,
on-premises, or hybrid.
As we return to the show, that's where we pick up.
(31:30):
I want to switch topics a little bit.
You just alluded to private deployment.
And just a couple of months ago, I had Phil Saunders, who you mentioned, the CEO ofRelativity on this podcast to talk about his announcement that starting in 2028,
Relativity is going to basically require that all new matters be hosted in the cloud, noton premises.
(31:52):
You kind of took a different tack this week, or I guess last week or so, announcing thisprivate
deployment group, I think, within your company and that you're going to be supportingcompanies uh basically wherever they want to be uh hosting, whether it's on premises or in
the cloud.
So with so many in the industry saying the future is in the cloud, especially with Gen.aiand the capabilities of being in the cloud and able, uh why take that position?
(32:22):
Why take that tack?
Here, Matthew, I'll let you talk technically in a second, but like, look, from ourperspective, we've always believed in, back to the word, democratize, right?
And we heard our customers.
believe, look, we believe the future is in the cloud as well.
We get that.
And we're not going to invest anything less in that.
(32:42):
But there's also a moment where you've got to recognize that there needs to be a bridgefor folks.
And that bridge can be used by folks when they want to be used.
We made the decision.
to invest in and make operational decisions to invest more of our profitability into RPDso that our customers had the opportunity to take the bridge they wanted to go.
(33:05):
Now again, I will be very adamant.
We are a cloud SaaS software company and we always will be that at our roots.
We feel responsible to listen to our customers and give them what they want.
They've built their businesses.
in different situations, their customers might want this, they may not be ready.
Giving folks an optionality is at our core as a company and a business culture and abusiness philosophy.
(33:30):
So RPD is also very near and to our heart.
doesn't fall in depth years with our board because there is a cost to it, but ourcustomers are happy about it.
And we feel like if folks need to move more slowly into something, at Reveal,
It's my personal responsibility to the community and also the company's responsibility togive folks the opportunity to crawl, walk, run to where they're going.
(33:58):
Look, this may be a disaster.
Three or four people might sign up for it.
That is what it is.
We've invested in it the way we wanted to invest in it.
We want to be there as a resource for folks.
Everyone else might decide, you know what, we're not going to go that direction.
We're going to go this direction.
But from our perspective or the industry, it was our responsibility to give them access tosomething.
that they can't get in other areas.
(34:20):
Is this a response to relativity's move or was this in the works already?
Look, mean, I think that it's all, I think that it's a good question.
I'm a straightforward guy, so I'm going to give you straightforward answer.
I think that we heard enough people that were unhappy about the announcement thatRelativity made.
(34:41):
We already knew it was coming.
So we were already exploring the possibility of this, that it absolutely influenced whatwe did.
Because we feel like if some of those customers can move into RPD,
and we can get an opportunity to get them into Aji or Logical or Reveal Enterprise, we'vegot an opportunity to get those customers.
That's not the only reason though.
That's part of the reason, but it's not the only reason.
(35:02):
And Matthew Wendell said he'd leave the technical parts to you, uh why are the technicalparts to Adam?
Is this primarily a service that you're offering or are there technical components aswell?
I think that's important.
Let's talk about the infrastructure team we built.
So before we get into the technical piece, I do want to reiterate one thing that Wendellsaid, which is RPD is an embodiment of the ethos we've always had it reveal.
(35:27):
was since, you know, when I were here and when it was just single digit, you know, don'tforget, please, right?
We're, we've been here a long time and we used to have a tagline called.
Matthew, to be clear, I was there when it was a single.
But you know, oh you know, we used to have a tagline called reveal everywhere.
(35:49):
I think this is, this is actually the, you know, this is the, the sort of long-termembodiment of that philosophy, which is, you know, we want to bring the technology to you
where, you, wherever you need.
So our RPD, so I'll get into a couple of the technical details.
The, is a, it is a software product that we're bringing to market, but the
(36:13):
piece that I want to be very clear about is that we are not bringing a separate softwareproduct market.
It is a single code base.
So the Refuel platform is a modern review platform.
It is cloud-based, it is built on technologies that most companies these days are runningin their own, whether it's their own data center, whether it's running in their own cloud,
(36:41):
whether it's Azure or GCP.
or Oracle, this is not an on-prem play.
This is truly a bring reveal wherever you want to put it play.
if you want to put it in you can put it in your own cloud.
If it's on-prem, put it on-prem.
If it's an appliance, put it on an appliance.
But it is a fully containerized platform that gives it the flexibility to be able to belocated wherever you would like to put it.
(37:06):
we've always been very strategic about how we build our technology.
so that we have that optionality.
Matt, sorry, real quickly, just to interrupt you.
You know, one thing, Bob, that's really interesting that we've done, we've built a reallygood relationship with our AWS Reseller Mission.
They actually have a price sheet.
After four years, we've got this price where folks can go directly to our reseller andthey can get wholesale pricing and work directly with AWS and Mission, which I love.
(37:34):
I love offering that optionality and sharing the wealth and success of hosting this data.
Sorry, Matt, I wanted to add that.
So RPD is about, it's really about productizing the offering of bringing it to a privatedeployment.
ensuring that we have great documentation, great user experience, that we have thesesupport staff, the deployment personnel to be able to assist our customers with
(38:02):
deployment.
To be clear, we don't want to be a managed service within your environment.
There are plenty of other managed service providers out there that will help you with yourinfrastructure if that's what you need.
But we know that we need to be able to support internal teams or our infrastructureproviders in order to be able to deploy and manage our software wherever you want to
(38:27):
deploy it.
Yeah.
All right.
That makes sense.
Our time is running and I have so many things I wanted to ask you about.
guess I just want to also just kind of follow up a little bit on obviously the last fiveto six years of Reveal has been in some ways characterized by some of the major
acquisitions you've done.
(38:50):
There was NexLP in 2020, there was BrainSpace in 2021, then sort of the dual acquisitionof Logical and iPro and
2023.
I wonder if you can just kind of talk a little bit about what that's meant for where thecompany is today.
And two-part question, are you anticipating further acquisitions coming in the nearfuture?
(39:14):
Yeah, so well, it's funny because we did next lpm brain space really within 90 days ofeach other Not dissimilar from what we did with with iPro and and logic
announced late 2022.
mean late.
yeah, this case really was like 75 days apart, but but
by K1.
m
Yeah, people thought we were nuts, but we did it, right?
(39:35):
And um look, I think that in any world, we've got a buy, build, partner mentality.
And I think that the last couple of years, we made the three acquisitions, Ona, Logical,and iPro.
And you have to go through an integration process.
In parallel, we were launching our FedRAMP certification.
(39:58):
We were launching AGI, RPD, all these different things.
And now that we're kind of coming out of the messy middle, as I like to call it, from anintegration perspective, it's not just about product integration and technical
integration.
It's about operational integration.
It's about cultural integration.
Two-year anniversary will be August 15th.
Owen, think, was May of 2024.
(40:21):
So a little bit more recently, but also a smaller company.
you know, look, the hope is that we continue to grow organically.
Right now we are exploding.
It's the right time to explode.
that's primarily driven by, I think, our dual platform approach, the single AI engine.
But I do think that in the coming, you know, two to three years, we need to look at boththe more transformational acquisitions that are out there to consider this an industry
(40:49):
that can be consolidated, whether it's in the practice of law or the business of law even,and continue to build our momentum.
But we also need to look at some of these smaller companies.
And, you know, we've gotten away from
partnering with smaller technology companies that are very smart.
We've gotten away from, we'll be announcing a partnership next week at Elta, and it's aperfect example of a smaller company that is a really solid technology with a great
(41:18):
go-to-market strategy.
We need to look at those and say, how can this help our customers?
How can this help our platforms?
And where do we see fits?
So we're rolling that out to where we can start to build more of those partnerships out.
And look, in reality, we are backed by private equity.
So those partnerships will evolve.
Some will end up as acquisitions, some will not.
But I think that we need to be realized that we were built both organically andinorganically, and our future will remain the same.
(41:44):
It's just the past couple of years, we made such transformational acquisitions that it wasimportant for us to get our sea legs underneath us, stabilize the operations internally,
both culturally and technically.
And then now that we've come up for air and the water's no longer choppy, hey, let's go.
Like, you've got to be bold to win big.
(42:05):
And if you want to win big, this is our moment.
This is why we need the entire industry getting behind Reveal and the other companies whenwe've got an opportunity as an industry to become the leader in AI globally.
oh
Yeah, I know we're running really short on time here.
just want to, what's ahead?
(42:26):
What's not just the next year, but the next five years look like for Reveal.
I mean, pour gasoline on reveal and go as fast as possible and leverage our partnerships,leverage our customers and accelerate adoption of AI.
It's as simple as that.
Sounds good.
Anything else that either of you want to mention that I haven't asked about?
(42:47):
well, I know there's a lot more probably that we haven't been able to talk about in thistime, but anything you're just dying to point out before we wrap up?
Yeah, I mean, look, I'd like to compliment Matthew and his team.
You know, a lot of times people associate Reveal with me, but, you know, Matthew Broder'sMagrue has been with us now for almost 12 years and has moved up the ranks to CTO.
(43:09):
And without him and his team and the innovation that they've created and the integrationthey've created, none of this is possible.
Right?
My job's easy.
His job and the other leaders in the organization's job is difficult.
and the employees that have been integrated, they've really bought into the system, thedirection.
(43:31):
A lot of that success is attributed to the guy on this call.
And I'm driven every day by uh bringing great technology to the legal space.
um every day is exciting, and it'll be exciting to see what the next five years brings.
Well, Matthew, when your next salary review comes up, play him that tape that he just...
(43:54):
You gotta pay to play.
Well, Wendell, Matthew, thank you so much for being on the show.
Thanks, Bob.
This is great.
We really appreciate the time.
Yeah, I hope to see you both wandering around National Harbor.
See you next week.
Yeah, let's try and shoot me a text or something.
All right, see ya.
(44:15):
Thanks for listening to today's show.
Hope you enjoyed it.
If you'd to share your own thoughts or comments, please do so by messaging me on LinkedInor other social media, or just email me directly, ambroji at gmail.com.
If you're a fan of the show, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts.
Law Next is a production of Law Next Media.
I'm your host, Bob Ambroji.
Please join us again next time for another episode of Law Next.
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