Technical FAQs for "PrizmDoc Editor"

Artificial intelligence (AI) is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was just five years ago. When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, it grew to one million users in less than a week. AI has evolved from simple rule-based systems to more sophisticated machine-learning algorithms.

In the software development realm, AI has already made big strides—especially within enterprise content management applications. It’s streamlining workflows, enhancing data processing, and improving decision-making capabilities.

With the emergence of agentic AI, we’re on the cusp of a new era. This transformative technology promises to take AI from a human-dependent tool to an autonomous business partner. Agentic AI represents a leap forward in artificial intelligence that will undoubtedly revolutionize the software industry.

What is Agentic AI?

Agentic AI, or agent-based artificial intelligence, consists of AI systems that can act autonomously to achieve goals. These systems go beyond simple task execution to independently solve problems and make decisions like a human agent would.

Agentic AI is goal-driven. These systems are designed to meet specific objectives and can create plans to achieve them. They go beyond responding to inputs, proactively working toward desired outcomes. Agentic AI systems can learn and adapt. They improve their performance over time by learning from experiences and adjusting their strategies.

One of agentic AI’s most impressive features is its advanced reasoning capabilities. It can process complex information, draw insights, and make logical inferences. Agentic AI can not only tackle difficult problems and understand nuanced instructions, but it can also explain its decision-making process.

Let’s say an AI agent receives a complex customer inquiry about a missing delivery. It analyzes the situation by accessing order tracking systems and verifying shipping status. Without human intervention, the agent can identify delivery issues and initiate the appropriate actions autonomously.

Agentic AI vs. Traditional AI

Traditional AI typically operates within predefined parameters. It excels at pattern recognition, data analysis, and performing programmed instructions. But it’s unable to adapt to new situations or make autonomous decisions beyond its initial programming.

Agentic AI demonstrates a higher level of autonomy and flexibility. These systems can:

• Make independent decisions based on complex inputs and changing environments
• Set and pursue goals, adapting strategies as needed
• Learn from experiences and improve performance
• Engage in advanced reasoning

While traditional AI is an efficient tool, agentic AI is more like an intelligent assistant that can formulate plans and take initiative.

Agentic AI Real-World Applications

Agentic AI will touch every industry, offering innovative solutions to complex challenges. Here are some examples of how agentic AI has already been applied to real-world scenarios.

IT Incident Response

IBM manages and analyzes massive amounts of data on its network systems. To quickly identify threats, phishing attacks, and ransomware without overwhelming security teams, IBM developed Watson for Cyber Security. This cognitive IT system processes unstructured data like blogs and research reports. Then it correlates the unstructured data with structured data from security tools to identify threats.

Implementing Watson for Cyber Security has allowed IBM to single out and respond to threats more quickly. It’s made the process more efficient and helped IBM protect itself and its clients from cyber attacks.

Customer Service Routing

Verint, a leader in customer experience automation, uses multiple agentic AI solutions to improve interactions with customers. With help from AI, Verint’s CX/EX Scoring bot monitors customer calls, evaluating conversation flow and emotional cues. It immediately notifies supervisors when agents need support.

The company also leverages an Agent Virtual Assistant. Powered by agentic AI, the Verint Agent Virtual Assistant takes an agent question and analyzes the context using third-party applications and systems of record. From this information, it can provide personalized information to answer the agent’s question.

Software Development

Agentic AI has simplified how software teams work. Since agentic AI systems are remarkably autonomous, they can understand context and execute complex development tasks.

One example is GitHub Copilot for Pull Requests, which goes far beyond basic code review. Agentic AI independently analyzes code changes to understand their broader impact across the entire codebase. It flags potential issues and proposes specific fixes, explaining its reasoning much like an experienced senior developer would.

Amazon CodeWhisperer exemplifies how agentic AI can transform code optimization. It understands project context and independently suggests architectural improvements. It can analyze codebases holistically, identifying opportunities for performance optimization and flagging potential security issues before they become vulnerabilities.

What Does Agentic AI Mean for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs)?

For independent software vendors, agentic AI isn’t just another tech buzzword. Working with agentic AI is like having a highly capable member of your team who can work independently, handle routine tasks, and make smart decisions without needing constant direction.

Development teams often get bogged down with time-consuming tasks like testing, code review, and documentation. Agentic AI can tackle these responsibilities without breaking a sweat. It frees up developers to focus on solving complex problems and creating innovative features that set their products apart. For teams with limited resources, this means getting more done without having to hire staff.

Greater efficiency is just one of the perks agentic AI brings to the table. It can also help improve product quality by continuously monitoring code, spotting potential issues, and suggesting improvements. This translates into more reliable products, fewer customer support issues, and reduced maintenance costs. The system learns from every project it works on, ensuring teams apply successful approaches consistently across the entire product.

Agentic AI is a valuable tool that enables ISVs to move faster in a competitive market. When you can develop and test your own features more quickly, you can respond to customer needs and market opportunities at a pace not previously possible. This speed advantage is critical in the software market, where being the first to introduce new capabilities can make a huge difference in market share.

How Accusoft is Preparing for Agentic AI

The future of software development is intertwined with agentic AI. Staying competitive means finding ways to apply these capabilities efficiently.

Accusoft is at the forefront of incorporating new technologies like agentic AI with features like context-based redaction. In partnership with IBM, Accusoft has integrated watsonx.ai technology into our PrizmDoc product to help ECM software organizations reduce document processing times. We continue to explore bringing cutting-edge AI capabilities to content processing and document management applications.

With PrizmDoc, developers can access sophisticated AI-powered content processing capabilities without investing months or years of development time to build them from scratch. This allows ISVs to focus on their core product while leveraging Accusoft’s expertise in content processing and AI integration.

Ready to see what PrizmDoc can do for your application? Start your free trial today!

Data privacy continues to be a significant concern for businesses, employees, customers, and stakeholders alike. Privacy breaches can expose problems with document management and digital document security practices. They can also pose significant risks and costs to companies and stakeholders.  The importance of ensuring the secure sharing of confidential documents can’t be stressed enough.

When developing an application with SDKs or APIs or integrating new features into a workflow, developers must be aware of the security risks. Project managers, security engineers, and architects must work in tandem to identify and address all potential security breaches. This holds especially true for commercially-confidential, highly-sensitive, or private documents while in transit.

The Risks of Document Sharing

Document sharing, in general, can present opportunities for malicious actors to attempt to gain access to a competitor’s documents. It could also pave the way for uploading data containing malware accidentally. Protecting the enterprise as a whole should be a priority to prevent loss or compromise of customer-sensitive information. This is vital because even minor damage to a company’s reputation can have a devastating impact. 

When building applications with document sharing capabilities, developers need to think about the inherent risks that come along with allowing users access to upload and edit documents. Fortunately, there are a number of practical steps that developers can take to share sensitive documents securely without putting confidential information or mission-critical data at risk. 

5 Ways to Ensure Confidential Documents Are Shared Securely

1. Strengthen Application Security

Any conversation about document security needs to start with a focus on the application’s cybersecurity architecture. If document management software contains multiple vulnerabilities or doesn’t provide the necessary controls to safeguard data, it will be difficult to share sensitive documents securely. Here are a few best practices developers should have in place to create a secure application ecosystem: 

• Perform threat-modeling any time there is a major design change in the application or ecosystem to identify potential new threats.
• Encrypt customer sensitive documents both in transit and in storage. Ideally, the keys will be held by clients with an emergency access vault backup system, so that even the software developer cannot access any sensitive customer data. This way, even if an application or data centers are breached, customer documents will still be protected.
• Spend more time testing releases for weaknesses and allow security engineers and architects to weigh in on the product feature roadmap. Security patches and improvements should be given the same value as other new product features.
• Conduct periodic audits or external penetration testing to ensure that applications and customer data cannot be compromised.

2. Design Applications with Segregated Access

Secure documents and sensitive information should only be available to the people authorized to view or edit it. Access to one document should not allow someone to access other documents stored in the same application. By segregating access to data and assigning specific user permissions, developers can provide the tools customers need to manage their assets and share sensitive documents securely.

3. Eliminate External Viewing Dependencies

Although many organizations use secure applications to manage their document workflows, they frequently open themselves up to risk by relying on external software for document viewing. Without some way of sharing and viewing documents within the application itself, files will inevitably be shared over email and opened on local devices that may not have the latest security updates in place. Developers can avoid this problem by integrating HTML5 viewing capabilities into their application. This ensures that documents never have to leave a secure environment, even when they’re being shared with people outside an organization.

4. Create Unique Viewing Sessions

One of the challenges with many cloud-based document management systems is that once someone is granted access to a file, they typically retain that access until it is manually changed at a later date. In most instances, those privileges are also associated with the source file itself. This can create a number of security gaps if an organization doesn’t closely monitor access privileges. By implementing an HTML5 viewer that can generate unique viewing sessions for individual users, developers can provide more control over how to share confidential documents. Viewing sessions can be set to expire after use, and since the session is viewing a rendered version of the document instead of the source document itself, system administrators have more control over what aspects of it are shared. They may decide, for instance, to share only certain pages rather than the entire document.

5. Implement Redaction Capabilities

Redaction has long been used to protect private or confidential information in documents. Although organizations still frequently make embarrassing mistakes when it comes to redaction, it remains one of the most effective tools for anyone who needs to share sensitive documents securely. By integrating true redaction capabilities that not only obscure, but also completely remove sensitive information, developers provide applications that have the ability to screen documents for privacy risks before they’re shared with anyone. Performing redactions within the application environment also has the benefit of further limiting external dependencies that could threaten security.

Protect Confidential Documents with Accusoft Integrations

Accusoft’s collection of processing integrations give developers with a variety of document management tools for controlling privacy within their applications. The HTML5 capabilities of PrizmDoc Viewer offer powerful redaction tools and make it easier for administrators to control viewing access. 

To learn more about how Accusoft SDKs and APIs can provide the document management features you need to protect confidential information and privacy, visit our products page today or talk to one of our integration specialists.

Legal organizations faced tremendous challenges in 2020 due to the impacts of COVID-19. Firms and departments rapidly transitioned to remote work environments and were forced to rely upon their established technology resources more than ever before. While the industry fared better than many others, the experience has caused organizations to rethink their longstanding business models and workflow processes. As firms consider what steps to take in 2021 and beyond, LegalTech developers must be closely attuned to the pressures informing those decisions so they can provide the software to support automation in law firms.

The research firm Gartner provided a glimpse into those pressures in a 2020 survey focused on legal spending trends. Their findings reveal an industry in transition as legal organizations increasingly work to expand their internal capabilities, improve legal document automation, and reduce reliance on outside spending. LegalTech developers are uniquely positioned to facilitate this inward turn with versatile legal workflow automation software.

Turning Weaknesses Into Strengths

The COVID-19 pandemic forced law firms and legal departments to take notice of organizational shortcomings that often escaped notice in previous years. According to Gartner research, the biggest area of concern was by far technology solutions. Some organizations found themselves saddled with legacy systems that lacked the robust feature set of modern LegalTech applications. Others, however, wisely made the investment in new software over the last decade, but those systems have not been fully adopted by legal personnel. This echoes the results from a 2020 Accusoft survey that found over 40 percent of firms are still relying on inefficient manual processes for document assembly, discovery, signature gathering, redaction, and contract management. 

For LegalTech developers, these twin shortcomings present a tremendous opportunity. Legal organizations will be in need of technology solutions that help them to automate low-value tasks and enhance collaboration capabilities while also looking to secure broader acceptance and buy-in from employees. That means delivering a streamlined, intuitive user experience will be every bit as important as integrating the latest legal workflow automation software.

Identifying Opportunities

The LegalTech market is a diverse and rapidly growing field that consists of multiple technology solutions. Gartner’s 2020 research into legal organizations offers a helpful snapshot of how far these firms and departments have to go when it comes to legal technology adoption and automation in law firms:

• E-Billing: 48 percent
• Contract LIfecycle Management: 44 percent
• Document Management: 40 percent
• eDiscovery: 33 percent
• Records Management: 28 percent

Although overall legal spend did not change substantially from 2019 to 2020, the pandemic has caused firms to shift resources away from outsourced services and toward their in-house capabilities. With nearly a third of organizations looking to accelerate their technology, there are significant opportunities for LegalTech developers to deliver efficient and cost-effective solutions. Contract automation tools, document management platforms, and eDiscovery applications will all be in high demand thanks to their ability to help firms enhance their productivity and scale services in a sustainable fashion.

Improving Implementation

Understanding the work culture and processes of a legal organization is critical to any successful technology implementation. Without that knowledge, developers can end up building a solution that doesn’t meet a customer’s needs or is too removed from existing workflows to be easily adopted. This problem was quite pronounced in the early days of LegalTech software, when many legal professionals still had doubts about the usefulness of technology.

Communication between developers and legal departments is quickly improving, however. From 2018 to 2020, the number of organizations with a legal operations manager in place increased by 75.8 percent. In 40 percent of firms, that role is filled by a non-lawyer who is better equipped to facilitate conversations between software developers and internal stakeholders.

LegalTech developers can use this channel to get a better idea of how they can implement solutions like legal document automation through an organization’s existing technology stack with minimal disruption. They can also begin to address specific internal pain points and match those needs to the right software integrations to round out their application’s functionality. Versatile SDK and API integrations will play a crucial role in meeting these needs because developers may have to build out customized feature sets to provide the ideal capabilities.

Doing More with Less

Developers with the ability to build out customizable, flexible software applications can also help legal customers to eliminate redundant or outdated solutions they already have in place. There’s no reason for a firm to rely on one program for assembling documents, another for viewing and redlining them, and yet another for redacting them to protect privacy. With the right software integrations, LegalTech developers can build core productivity features into their platforms quickly and easily. They can then offer a comprehensive solution that solves multiple customer needs and allows them to incorporate more of their workflows into a comprehensive, secure application environment.

This consolidation of LegalTech capabilities will continue to be important as all but the largest legal organizations transition toward a more customer service-oriented business model that emphasizes competitive, transparent pricing and “off-the-shelf” legal services. Legal collaboration will increasingly expand to include the firm’s clients, which makes the adoption of easily-accessible web applications more important than ever. An ideal LegalTech solution will allow legal teams to share information easily, quickly, and securely with people inside and outside their organization. Developers can build the applications that make this possible, ushering in a new era of transparency, collaboration, and efficiency that will help firms continue to grow.

Choosing the Right Integrations

Accusoft’s collection of SDK and API integrations have long helped LegalTech developers incorporate the powerful features their customers are looking for into their applications. By turning to contract assembly tools like PrizmDoc Editor or the legal document automation capabilities of Barcode Xpress, software teams can quickly implement core functionality while dedicating the bulk of their resources to building innovative new features that will set their product apart in a crowded market. 

The benefits of selecting the right integration partner are particularly evident when looking at eDiscovery applications. Developing a comprehensive LegalTech eDiscovery platform requires a wide-range of viewing, annotation, comparison, conversion, search, and redaction options. Building those features from scratch can extend development timelines by months, which could potentially cost a software developer their chance to break into a highly competitive market. With an API integration like PrizmDoc Viewer, however, they can rapidly integrate proven features into their application to help deliver better performance to customers while also getting to market faster and saving valuable resources that may be needed elsewhere during the development cycle. 

To learn more about how Accusoft’s family of SDK and API integrations can transform your LegalTech application and improve automation in law firms, have a look at our LegalTech Fact Sheet and match the right solution to your development needs.

Today’s legal organizations are facing a number of transformative changes when it comes to managing documents. Briefcases and file folders are rapidly being replaced by laptops and tablets, and firms that are unwilling to adapt to the new digital-first landscape are at risk of falling behind their competitors. As LegalTech developers work to build the legal document software to facilitate this complex transition, they need to keep a few of these challenges in mind.

Top 3 Legal Document Management Challenges

1. Transparency

The ability to deliver a quality customer experience has become the key competitive differentiator for many businesses and the legal industry is no exception. While there will always be a market for specialized “big law” firms that provide strategic, customized services to high-end clients, the majority of firms are focusing more on routine legal services. Today’s legal customers expect the same level of transparency they get from other businesses when it comes to pricing, communication, and visibility into the legal process.

Putting the right LegalTech systems in place to facilitate key document management processes can help legal teams build a better relationship with their clients. Developers can provide those systems by integrating essential features like secure document viewing into their applications. An HTML5 viewer with file conversion capabilities makes it easy for firms to share important documents with clients without endangering privacy. Annotation markups can speed up the review process, and redaction tools allow documents to be shared without exposing personally identifiable or confidential information.

2. Contract Automation

For firms handling high volumes of routine legal work, having the right automation tools in place for streamlined legal document management is essential for sustainable growth. According to one estimate, nearly a quarter of legal work could be handled by automation technology, which not only frees up attorneys to focus on more high value tasks, but also allows firms to take on additional clients without overburdening their existing resources.

Contract management is one area where LegalTech developers are making huge strides in terms of automation. Thanks to document assembly tools, it’s now possible to programmatically build contracts from customizable templates, replacing fillable sections with client and case specific information (such as names, dates, and various numbers). Assembling contracts in this fashion significantly reduces the manual errors so often associated with copying and pasting in a word processing program. It also allows firms to draft contracts much more quickly, helping them to accommodate growing workflows as their business scales over time.

3. Accurate Data Capture

Gathering information quickly and accurately is becoming just as important to the legal industry as it is to other sectors. It’s especially valuable for a legal document management system that needs to support complicated processes like eDiscovery, contract negotiation, client intake, and court filings. Without some way of quickly converting documents into digital form, sorting them into the proper database, or finding and retrieving files when they’re needed, attorneys will struggle to handle cases and the needs of their clients efficiently. 

Law firms have been slow to replace their paper-based records systems with digital versions, but LegalTech developers can help to ease the transition by building forms processing and barcode recognition capabilities into their applications. Data extraction tools can pull essential information from a wide range of legal forms much more quickly and accurately than would be possible with manual entry. This is especially useful for streamlining the client intake process.

During the eDiscovery process, it’s not uncommon for firms to gather scanned images of documents that cannot be readily searched. Optical character recognition (OCR) tools can extract the text from these images and use it to create a searchable PDF file. This makes it much easier for attorneys to locate important details when they’re needed most.

When it comes to managing files, assigning barcodes to them makes it easier to sort and track them within the legal document management system. When a document uploaded months ago is needed for a court filing, it can be pulled up right away simply by referencing the barcode. They are extremely useful in instances where large batches of files need to be processed immediately, but not reviewed until later. This is a common issue during eDiscovery, when a batch of documents may be received from one source (such as a government agency) and stored in a database for later review.

Integrating the Right Features LegalTech Customers Need

Although LegalTech solutions understandably put a lot of focus on managing billable hours and facilitating client communication, developers should not overlook the immense value of effective legal document management software. By building these tools directly into their applications, they can provide an all-in-one solution that allows firms to reduce their technical debt and improve efficiency across their practice.

Accusoft’s collection of API and SDK integrations can transform LegalTech platforms into fully-featured document management systems for law firms. We work closely with developers to ensure that we enhance their application’s capabilities with proven technology so they can get to market faster.

If you’re building the next generation of document management systems for law firms, Accusoft has the integrations that will set your application apart from the crowd. Talk to one of our LegalTech specialists today to learn out how we can help you meet the legal industry’s evolving needs.

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Accusoft is attending the LegalWeek 2023 event in NYC, are you? Come visit our booth #2304 and discover software to manage your documents better.

For more information on Accusoft’s software integrations for eDiscovery and case management applications, visit our Legal industries page.

Technology trends are moving quickly in the legal industry as firms scramble to adapt to a shifting business landscape. Although many firms and organizations were already taking steps to break away from old fashioned processes and embrace the potential of LegalTech solutions, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated change initiatives and forced legal professionals to reassess their foundational business models. To get a better sense of the technology impact on law firms, developers would be wise to review recent tech surveys of the industry that assess how LegalTech software is being utilized.

LegalTech Technology Survey: A Closer Look 

According to a 2020 technology survey conducted by Bloomberg Law, legal firms are seeing tremendous benefits from the implementation of LegalTech tools. Four out of five firms and 73 percent of corporate legal departments have seen an increase in work volume, with both reporting that technology has also improved the quality of their work. On balance, high-value tasks are getting more attention, with 56 percent of respondents indicating that they spend at least somewhat more time on higher-level tasks. Low-value task loads have been reduced by an even larger rate, with 73% of respondents spending at least somewhat less time on less skilled, lower-level tasks.

Critically, these improvements seem to have come without also introducing a new set of challenges. One of the frequently cited concerns about implementing new LegalTech solutions is that it will create workflow disruptions or cause other difficulties with legal processes. In reality, such critiques appear to be largely unwarranted. Bloomberg Law’s 2020 tech survey found that large majorities of respondents did not believe LegalTech added to the number (78 percent) or difficulty (86 percent) of workflow impediments.

LegalTech Automation Needs

Despite the positive technology impact on firms, there are still many tasks being done manually that could be automated with software tools. In 2020, Accusoft conducted a technology survey of legal professionals about how they’re managing productivity and utilizing LegalTech applications. We discovered that while 54 percent of respondents were utilizing digital solutions to view and collaborate on documents, automation tools had yet to eradicate time-consuming manual tasks.

Given the enduring prevalence of manual processes, it’s hardly a surprise that 52 percent of respondents had difficulty locating the right document assets when they needed them. That figure, in particular, is unfortunate considering that a 2020 Clio report on legal trends found that 69 percent of consumers would prefer to work with legal firms capable of sharing documents electronically. 

The Technology Impact on Law Firms in Business Terms

Failing to implement effective LegalTech tools, then, could very well be costing many firms business. Longstanding legal business models that focus on profit per partner (PEP) metrics and emphasize short-term priorities are already giving way to technology-driven models that deliver faster, more efficient services at more competitive price points for customers. While boutique “big law” firms may continue to resist automation trends due to the specialized and strategic nature of their business, smaller firms and legal departments will need to reorient their operations to deliver the routine, day-to-day services that most customers are seeking. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has made many legal organizations more open to adopting technology solutions. Bloomberg Law’s report found that prior to 2020, only 40 percent of legal leaders described themselves as being “very open” to implementing new tech. Following the pandemic, that number has increased to 54 percent, perhaps acknowledging a new reality for the legal industry as existing business models are reconsidered.

Building the Future of LegalTech

LegalTech developers face several challenges as they work on designing the next generation of technology solutions for the industry. The first question almost always comes down to whether it makes sense to build application features from scratch or to buy and integrate proven solutions. Many legal organizations are looking for powerful software tools that incorporate the latest in process automation technology, which often demands substantial development resources to build and implement. For many software developers, it can be difficult to get products to market quickly without cutting some corners here and there in terms of features when they have to build everything from the ground up.

By incorporating ready-made functionality in the form of specialized integrations, developers can dedicate more of their resources to the innovative technology that powers their LegalTech solution. From HTML5 viewing that makes it easy to securely view a variety of file types to collaboration tools that allow for markup and redaction, software integrations can rapidly expand the capabilities of an application to make it more attractive to legal organizations.

Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Viewer allows developers to integrate versatile viewing and conversion functionality into their LegalTech solutions. It also features powerful annotation and redaction tools that can significantly streamline the eDiscovery process. Learn more about these and other solutions in our LegalTech Fact Sheet.

What Are Your PDF Reader Options?

Sharing and viewing PDFs online has become much easier with the development of HTML5 viewing technology and PDF.js-based software. For many years, the only way to view a PDF was to download a file and open it using a dedicated PDF reader application. Although many of these readers could be added to a web browser using a plug-in, this wasn’t always a reliable solution and inconsistent support for these extensions often created security risks.

After Mozilla introduced the PDF.js open-source library in 2011, integrated PDF viewing quickly became an essential feature for web browsers. Most users now simply take PDF viewing for granted, trusting that their browser will be able to open and read any file. For some organizations, relying on a browser PDF reader is a perfectly reasonable solution, especially if they don’t have any concerns over controlling the document viewing experience.

But for many developers building web applications, these browsers and external PDF readers put them at the mercy of third-party providers. Changes or security problems with these solutions can leave development teams scrambling to implement workarounds that could have been avoided if they had their own dedicated viewing solution. That’s why applications increasingly feature a built-in PDF reader that allows them to better manage and present important digital documents.

Why Your Application Needs a Built-in PDF Reader

The core problem with relying on an external viewing solution comes down to control. In order to view a PDF in a dedicated reader, the file needs to be downloaded. Once that document is removed from a secure application, it could easily be distributed or altered without any authorization or oversight. This often results in serious version confusion that leaves everyone wondering which version of a PDF is the most up-to-date. By keeping documents within a controlled application, developers can ensure that the files viewed there are current.

Relying on external PDF viewers can also create an inconsistent user experience. Since not all viewers render documents, in the same way, it’s impossible to control what someone will see when they open a given PDF. In some cases, that could result in wrong fonts being displayed or some image layers failing to render properly. But it may also prevent someone from even viewing a file at all. For example, browser-based viewers that use the base PDF.js library without making any improvements to it often struggle to render lengthy or complex files. 

When applications incorporate a built-in PDF reader, developers can ensure that every document viewed within that solution will look the same on every device (and that it will open in the first place!). This level of control is incredibly important for organizations looking to build a frictionless and compelling user experience.

Integrating a PDF Reader

By incorporating a PDF reader into their web-based applications, developers are able to both retain full control over the viewing experience and keep files within a protected environment. When users are interacting with the application, all PDF viewing can be handled by the built-in viewer rather than handed off to external software. This makes it easier to manage access effectively and limits the number of downloads. 

Since every user will be viewing documents through the same built-in PDF reader, developers can also craft a consistent experience across multiple platforms. With more and more people accessing their applications with mobile devices, it’s important for development teams to offer responsive viewing solutions that can accommodate various screen sizes and interfaces.

In order to maintain complete control over files and deliver better performance, a built-in PDF reader should be able to operate as an entirely client-side solution. Whether it’s running within an on-premises technology stack or as part of an application’s cloud deployment, a PDF viewer without any complicated dependencies never has to worry about connecting to a third-party service to facilitate viewing. 

But why stop at PDF viewing?

PDF Editing

Often users need the ability to view as well as collaborate on their PDF documents, and providing the ability to edit those documents presents a challenge for developers. In a recent survey conducted amongst developers, there appears to be a disconnect between the PDF editing features that are available in most applications, to what developers actually need to fulfill and enhance their applications. So what’s the solution? 

Third-party Integrated PDF Viewing and Editing

A PDF solution provider has already worked out the challenges associated with viewing and editing PDF documents within an application. They’ve also devoted their resources to improving their document capabilities and expanding features to offer greater flexibility.

A good third-party provider also offers extensive support during and after the implementation process. If the developer needs to add a new PDF-related capability to their application or if they encounter a problem, they can quickly resolve the issue by working with their provider rather than wasting valuable resources trying to identify and fix the problem themselves. That combination of expertise and service means that developers can spend more time focusing on their application’s unique features rather than continuously wrestling with PDF-related challenges.

Enhance Your Application with PDF Integrations from Accusoft

With more than three decades of experience managing documents and images, Accusoft has been building innovative PDF solutions since the format was first introduced. Whether you need to add flexible front-end viewing and editing features to your application or are looking to add powerful programmatic PDF capabilities into the back end of your software, we provide a wide range of PDF solutions that address multiple development needs.

To learn more about how Accusoft can solve your PDF document management challenges, talk to one of our PDF specialists today and find the integration that works best for your software project.

Judge gavel on computer. Concept of internet crime, hacking and cyber crimes

Implementing any technology solution within an established organization can be a monumental challenge for a developer. Doing so for a legal firm that has a strong culture and longstanding processes can be even more difficult. That’s why LegalTech developers need to take a few key factors into consideration as they work on applications for the legal industry.

Build vs. Buy

One of the first questions any firm needs to ask is whether it wants to build a specialized solution or turn to an existing LegalTech application. In many cases, this comes down to a question of resources. For larger “big law” firms or legal departments within an enterprise business, internal developers may be available to build a customized application that caters to specific organizational needs. 

If the resources and development skills are on hand, building a dedicated solution can be an effective strategy. Developers can focus narrowly on the established processes used at the firm and design technology that targets clear pain points more effectively than an “off-the-shelf” product.

More importantly, as Kelly Wehbi, Head of Product for Gravity Stack, points out, building doesn’t necessarily mean starting from nothing: 

“I think a lot about how to leverage the platforms we have or could potentially purchase, but then add our own expertise and strengths on top of it. That doesn’t have to mean you have to build some entirely new interface or have to invent some new technology. It could be there’s a tool that’s out there that does exactly what you need and maybe you have to build a few customizations on top of that.”

Of course, building a solution also presents a number of challenges, especially if the project’s requirements are not well defined from the beginning. There’s a great deal of overhead involved with building new technology in terms of maintenance and ongoing support. It’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on technology at the expense of services. But legal firms are not product companies; they need to focus instead on finding ways they can use technology to leverage their core services.

It’s that emphasis on services that drives many firms to buy the technology solutions they need rather than to build them. Existing software integrations are typically better positioned to maintain security and don’t need to be maintained as extensively. Deploying proven software integrations also helps organizations to maximize their on-premises resources and enhance their flexibility in the long-term. 

“I tend to default toward leveraging an existing platform when possible,” Wehbi admits. “Security ends up being a huge part of this and when you can leverage a company that’s solved that really well, that goes a long, long way. It offers you a bunch of options you wouldn’t have if you had to build it yourself,” Wehbi says. “That’s a pretty big undertaking to start from scratch.”

Getting Buy-In for LegalTech Solutions

Once the build or buy decision is finally made, there’s still the critical matter of executing and putting the new solution into practice. Getting feedback throughout the development and integration process is important, whether it’s gathered from anecdotal observations or some form of usage analytics. 

Neeraj Raijpal, CIO at Schroock & Schroock & Lavan, finds that implementations tend to go smoother when the development team is able to get rapid feedback from key decision makers: “The faster you get the feedback, the faster you know you’re down the right path or not. It is very frightening when the stakeholder…looks at something and says ‘This is exactly the opposite of what I expected.’ You don’t want to be in that situation.”

Ultimately, a LegalTech application’s success depends largely upon whether or not the firm as a whole embraces it. When developers are seeking to implement a solution, they need to be especially careful to take the culture of the firm into consideration. Without buy-in at the top, it will be difficult to convince anyone in the organization to commit to change. 

“If you’re trying to solve a problem because you have a deficiency in a current business process, but you’re not willing to change the process…that’s (a) disaster,” Raijpal warns. Although LegalTech solutions are designed to enhance efficiency and reduce errors, they often require people to learn how to use them or to abandon existing technology solutions.

Take, for example, a legal firm that needs to redact documents during the discovery process. The existing process likely involves printing out documents and then laboriously redacting them by hand with marker. Once that process is finished, they are scanned and saved as image-based PDFs. An HTML5 viewer with redaction capabilities could easily streamline this process to make it faster, more flexible, and more secure. Unfortunately, if the firm’s attorneys aren’t willing to adopt the new process, all of the potential efficiency benefits go to waste.

The Importance of Communication

Communication and ongoing support are critical to ensuring a successful LegalTech implementation. Developers can begin this important conversation right from the beginning when they’re designing application features. Whether they’re building everything from scratch or turning to software integrations, they need to have honest and thorough discussions to determine what specific features are needed to support legal processes. Implementing a LegalTech solution is more likely to be successful if that solution is closely aligned with the firm’s existing needs and future goals.

But the conversation doesn’t stop once the application goes live. Ongoing support and education is often necessary to help firms adopt new technology and make the most of its potential. Developers may even need to adjust some features over time as needs change. If they utilized third party software integrations to add key functionality, they need to know they can count on those vendors to support them as the LegalTech application evolves.

Make Your LegalTech Implementation a Success with Accusoft

Accusoft’s family of software integrations allow LegalTech developers to quickly add the features their clients need to modernize workflows and improve efficiency. Whether it’s PrizmDoc’s extensive document redaction capabilities that make it easier to protect privacy during eDiscovery or the automated document assembly features of PrizmDoc, developers can lean on our 30 years of document processing expertise so they can focus on building the tools legal teams require

As part of our ongoing work with the LegalTech industry, Accusoft recently sponsored a Law.com webinar on the subject of building vs buying technology solutions for legal firms. You can listen to some of the highlights with contributors Kelly Wehbi and Neeraj Rajpal along with host Zach Warren, editor-in-chief of LegalTech News, on the Law.com Perspectives podcast.

Long resistant to technological change, the insurance industry has made great strides over the last decade to implement innovative InsurTech solutions that upend longstanding market practices. As insurance providers explore new strategies for attracting a new generation of customers, they continue to rely heavily upon InsurTech developers to build the solutions that help them expand their customer base.

The Insurance Industry’s “Protection Gap”

Today’s insurance companies are offering more products and services than ever before, and yet at the same time, most people are carrying less insurance they need to protect themselves from risk. This “protection gap” is at least partially the result of large amounts of friction when it comes to purchasing insurance. People are either choosing to not buy insurance products, or they don’t know what options are available to them.

Part of this problem is the result of outdated models many organizations use to sell insurance. There’s an old adage that insurance is something that is “sold” rather than something that is “bought.” In this model, customers are expected to interact with an insurance agent who actively sells them a particular coverage.

Unfortunately, this model is becoming less and less effective in an increasingly digitized world, especially when it comes to younger generations of customers who expect the same level of frictionless convenience from insurers that they now get from many financial services (especially those powered by FinTech solutions).

What Is Embedded Insurance?

One potential solution to this challenge is a new strategy known as embedded insurance. This approach first identifies purchases or situations where insurance is required or would present clear added value. Some examples could include the purchase of an automobile, a vacation package, or even a potentially hazardous activity like skiing. An appropriately risk-adjusted insurance package is then offered to customers at the point of sale, or “embedded” within the customer experience.

There are tremendous advantages to this strategy. In the first place, it allows insurers to offer their products to customers who need them most at the precise point when they need them. Rather than having to go through the laborious process of contacting an insurance agent to get a quote for a new automotive policy after someone buys a new car, they can simply update their plan or add insurance services at the same time they’re purchasing the car itself. Customers are less likely to put off getting insurance (and then often forgetting to do so later), and the insurance provider has an opportunity to offer services to the people most likely to purchase them. For the provider, it’s a much more efficient approach than relying on outdated cold calling techniques to sell policies that may or may not meet the current needs of a customer.

Technical Challenges of Embedded Insurance

In order to embed insurance offerings effectively, however, providers first need to overcome a few technology challenges. From improved data capture tools that allow them to conduct faster, more customized underwriting to integrations that connect their applications to partner ecosystems, a new generation of InsurTech solutions will be needed to remake insurance business models.

Better Data Capture

Having accurate information is essential to insurance underwriting. This is even more important when it comes to embedded insurance because rates need to be calculated quickly so they can be provided along with other purchases. In many cases, form information may need to be processed quickly to obtain key data on the customer and the details of their purchase. When InsurTech applications are equipped with automated forms processing tools, they can quickly extract key information and use it to make faster, more data-driven decisions.

Versatile Viewing Capabilities

Whether an InsurTech application stands on its own or is integrated into another service offering, customers will often need to view information about their policy options in order to make an informed decision. On the firm’s end, insurance agents may need to review application details or bring up other resources to review when finalizing rates. By building viewing capabilities into their InsurTech applications with integrations like an HTML5 viewer, developers can ensure that their customers will never be caught depending upon external platforms for document viewing or sharing.

Expanded Contract Automation

Many insurance policies still require some form of contract, even if digital signature technology allows these forms to exist entirely in electronic format. Having the ability to rapidly assemble a contract as part of an embedded insurance solution can further enhance the streamlined customer experience. InsurTech developers can integrate automated document assembly tools to rapidly build contracts from pre-existing templates and quickly fill in the necessary details or add additional clauses.

Accusoft InsurTech Solutions for Embedded Insurance

Accusoft’s collection of SDK and API integrations give InsurTech developers the tools they need to enhance the flexibility of their applications. Our software solutions provide proven, market-ready viewing and processing features so development teams can keep their focus on refining their platform’s innovative core functionality. Whether it’s the versatile forms processing features of FormSuite, the powerful HTML5 viewing capabilities of PrizmDoc Viewer, or the automated document assembly tools of PrizmDoc Editor, Accusoft integrations can help InsurTech developers get their applications to market faster and explore the possibilities of embedded insurance.

We’ve been working hard to design software integrations that meet the needs of the insurance industry and InsurTech developers. Download our InsurTech solutions fact sheet to see how our constantly evolving family of SDKs and APIs can improve your application’s capabilities and performance.

Seventy-six percent of companies surveyed plan to prioritize machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) deployments in 2021. Despite increased uptake, however, there is still a great deal of confusion surrounding these advanced concepts. In order to understand how organizations hope to leverage ML and AI in their technology initiatives, it’s helpful to take a step back and examine how they work and how they differ from each other.

What Is Machine Learning?

Machine learning uses statistics-driven algorithms to find patterns in massive amounts of data. These algorithms are designed to improve over time as they process more data to enable more accurate outputs. Machine learning is widely used to produce predictive recommendations — companies such as Google, Netflix, and Facebook collect data about user behaviors and feed it into machine learning algorithms which then produce targeted search results, movie recommendations, or advertisements. 

The key to machine learning success is data. The more data available to ML algorithms — and the higher-quality this data — the better they’ll be able to identify patterns in current datasets and apply them to new data sources.

Most machine learning methodologies fall under one of two broad categories:

• Supervised Learning: Developers classify and label data to guide the algorithm’s inputs and outputs to ensure specific patterns are recognized. This method is time and resource intensive because it requires data scientists to capture, control, and curate data sources.
• Unsupervised Learning: This approach provides ML algorithms with unlabeled and unclassified data and allows them to identify patterns based on unique data characteristics. Developers don’t interfere with the learning and pattern recognition process, instead evaluating the outputs for accuracy and modifying code as needed.

Why Does Machine Learning Matter?

Machine learning helps organizations leverage the massive amounts of data they’ve accumulated. This information is drawn from a variety of sources, including disparate forms and documents, data produced through customer transactions and service calls, and the ongoing operational data produced by staff as they interact with IT resources.

Thanks to both the rapid uptake of cloud computing and availability of large-scale data collection and analysis tools, these data volumes are increasing exponentially. As a result, aggregate assessment is now critical — companies need a way to rapidly and reliably derive patterns from available data, and apply these patterns to predictive action.

This is the evolving role of machine learning. By creating, testing, and deploying ML algorithms capable of rapid pattern analysis and application it’s possible for companies to benefit from this continual data influx rather than being constrained by the bounds of traditional data evaluation. To facilitate this process, many next-generation software tools and services are either equipped with built-in ML frameworks or are capable of interfacing with them.

Key Machine Learning Applications

The applications of machine learning are vast, but they tend to produce the best results when paired with existing processes that supplement human efforts or automate low-value, but labor-intensive, functions in the workplace. In effect, it has the potential to do almost anything a human mind can do, given enough time. 

Improved Data Capture

Capturing data from internal documents and customer-submitted forms can be cumbersome and time-consuming. It can also lead to wasted time and effort if data is incorrectly entered, duplicated, or accidentally deleted. By pairing machine learning tools with forms processing solutions like Accusoft’s FormSuite for Structured Forms, developers can build applications that identify, collect, and capture key data more efficiently and accurately. For example, a robot process automation (RPA) bot can be set up to receive extracted form data from FormSuite and then populate that information into the appropriate fields within an application. This not only accelerates forms processing workflows, but also greatly reduces the risk of data entry error. Properly implemented, automated data capture can act as a springboard for improved data insight and decision-making thanks to improved accuracy and consistency. 

Streamlined Content Creation

By combining machine learning algorithms and data sources with document editing tools, it’s possible to streamline key processes such as the creation of complex, compliance-bound content. One in-practice example is the use of Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Editor within the LegalSifter contract review and creation platform. By pairing its AI technology with PrizmDoc Editor’s document assembly capabilities, LegalSifter was able to quickly locate repetitive clauses and suggest replacements to create an automated contract creation experience for end users. 

What Is AI, and How Does It Relate to Machine Learning?

The terms artificial intelligence and machine learning are closely related and often used interchangeably, but they’re not identical.

Artificial intelligence refers to technologies that are capable of performing tasks like photo recognition or data pattern analysis with similar (or better) outcomes than human beings. Machine learning refers to the creation, testing, and refinement of the algorithms needed to support AI tools. In many ways, then, ML functions as a distinct process that helps make AI possible.

As noted by Toward Data Science, it often helps to think of AI, machine learning, and deep learning like a set of concentric rings. The smallest, inner ring is deep learning, which helps inform the middle ring of machine learning by providing layered neural network structures that improve the process of pattern recognition. The final, outside ring is AI, which depends on both deep and machine learning to deliver real-world results. 

Artificial intelligence tools can be broken down into two basic types:

• Generalized AI: These tools are capable of solving problems bounded by a clear set of rules. Using the ML algorithms that underpin the larger AI structure, general AI applications can act on stimuli — such as a security alert from an IT network — and respond appropriately by creating and logging reports or looping in human agents. 
• Narrow AI: These solutions are designed to solve specific, small-scale tasks. Building on the security example from above, a narrow AI application might see tools responding to specific threat events such as DDoS or ransomware attacks by deploying targeted, defensive responses that close active sessions, capture attack data, and prevent future connections from the same IP address. 

In practice, narrow AI tools can outperform their human counterparts in completing specific tasks, but are unable to translate this expertise into applicable action at scale. General tools come closer to mimicking human intelligence but are still a long way from replicating the depth and breadth of human thinking.

Limitations of AI

Much has been made about the potential of AI technologies to take the place of human staff, leading to a generalized sense of worry about the future of these tools at scale. Recent research, however, found that substantial confusion remains around not only the deployment of AI but the definition itself. In fact, one study found that 40 percent of AI startups in Europe were not actually using AI. In some cases, increasing market interest in AI tools encouraged the use of this term to help startups capture attention, in much the same way that rapid cloud adoption spurred the creation of a host of “cloud” companies that offered nothing of the sort.

Uncertainty around AI itself, however, also plays a role in this disconnect. Given the massive potential of AI to help companies solve both specific and generalized problems, the term can be applied in almost any context and made to fit almost any description.

Unlocking the Future

After spending many years confined to research projects and future-focused technology articles, both machine learning and artificial intelligence are making their way into the applications and software companies are deploying every day. As developers look ahead to building the next generation of technology solutions, they must not only think about how they can better leverage ML and AI principles, but also how to implement features that take advantage of them.

Accusoft’s collection of versatile SDK and API integrations deliver powerful viewing and image processing capabilities that help applications streamline workflows and enhance productivity. To learn more about how Accusoft can help you enhance the workflow in your machine learning or artificial intelligence projects, contact us today.

For many years, the legal industry proved resistant to the changes that were pushing other organizations toward digital transformation. Although the serious shocks of the 2008 financial crisis were not enough to spark a revolution in LegalTech automation, they did at least get many firms to start thinking differently about how they deployed technology. 

After enduring the disruption of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, firms are finally implementing the software applications that will help them to deliver legal services far more effectively. In order to understand what’s driving today’s LegalTech trends, it’s important to first recognize why changes that didn’t take place in 2008 are happening now.

Why 2020 Differs From 2008

The legal industry was not spared the impacts of the 2008 financial crisis. Rather than reassessing their fundamental business model, most firms reacted to the recession by laying off personnel. According to the National Association of Law Placement (NALP), nine percent of US associates lost their jobs over a nine month period between 2009 and 2010. 

While this strategy managed to protect profits in the short term, it had a negative impact on their talent pipelines in the long run. More importantly, firms also had little immediate incentive to rethink their business processes. Reducing personnel and increasing rates allowed them to meet their immediate revenue goals, and the basic structure of delivering legal services remained mostly unchanged. And, to be fair, many LegalTech automation platforms were not yet mature enough at that time to deliver clear value, especially when compared to the costs of implementation. 

The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has presented firms with a very different set of conditions. Almost every sector was impacted and it was not immediately clear how long the disruption would last. Social distancing requirements made it all but impossible for attorneys to meet with clients in person. After the initial wave of salary cuts and furloughs, firms were forced to think about how they could continue to deliver services in the midst of a pandemic.

Customer expectations have also changed dramatically since 2008. Legal clients expect faster, more efficient services delivered at a competitive price point. In order to grow revenue beyond 2020, firms will need to reorient themselves to do more with less, adopting the technology infrastructure that allows them to build more efficient processes and automate low value tasks so partners and associates can focus on other areas.

Post-2020 LegalTech Trends

Historically, the business model of most legal firms focused on immediate priorities and a reactive demand model that proved resistant to automation and efficiency. Since firms tend to look to metrics like PEP (Profit per Partner) to judge the health of the business, investing in process-oriented technology that would enable support staff to work more efficiently was rarely appealing. That’s because such investments would eat into short-term profits without offering a clear benefit in the future. 

But those benefits had very real potential, especially for firms and legal departments willing to look at different, less partner-driven business models that put more emphasis on customer-centric services. The firms that made the difficult decision to invest in LegalTech automation early now find themselves in a better position to thrive in a post-2020 landscape than competitors who were slower to adopt.

While premier “big law” firms will likely continue to offer high-value legal work to clients that require more specialized, strategic services, other firms and departments will be in an ideal position to capitalize on the type of work that benefits more from LegalTech automation. Specifically, they can leverage technology to meet known demand, or the day-to-day low to mid-level legal services that many customers expect and budget for. This is the type of work where efficient processes and automation make it possible for firms to take on more work and quickly scale their operations. It’s also a more customer-centric approach that acknowledges the ability to deliver legal services swiftly and cost-effectively will be a tremendous competitive advantage in the years ahead.

A Second Chance at Digital Transformation

Moments of crisis and disruption typically provide organizations with the opportunity to innovate and rethink their approach to how they do business. The legal industry, however, largely failed to adapt significantly in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Firms were often unwilling to change their processes or invest in new technology solutions, which makes it even more vital for them to adapt in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In some respects, the industry is getting a second chance to undergo true digital transformation. Due to the unique circumstances of the 2020 downturn, there is every reason to expect that the demand for legal services will grow substantially in 2021 and beyond. From cases and contracts that could not be resolved during the pandemic to a broad range of lawsuits related to COVID-19, legal organizations will need to put the right digital tools in place to handle caseloads efficiently. 

Stay Ahead of LegalTech Trends with Accusoft Integrations

In order to keep pace with rapidly developing LegalTech trends, developers need to be able to build versatile and reliable software that they can bring to market quickly. Building innovative tools to facilitate contract negotiation and eDiscovery is challenging enough without also creating the content processing and conversion capabilities that facilitate them. That’s why LegalTech development teams under resource and time constraints frequently turn to specialized integrations that allow them to add essential features without pulling their attention away from their core area of focus. This helps them get their products to market faster to keep their customers ahead of the latest LegalTech trends.

Accusoft’s collection of powerful SDK and API integrations allows developers to build the features they need on their own terms. For instance, PrizmDoc Editor’s document assembly capabilities allow firms to automate the contract creation and editing process to minimize human error and boost efficiency. PrizmDoc Viewer’s conversion, annotation, and redaction features make it an ideal fit for eDiscovery workflows that require high levels of flexibility and security. And when it comes to managing different types of documents and files throughout the legal process, having an image processing SDK like ImageGear that can convert, compress, and OCR a broad range of file types can transform a LegalTech application into a content management powerhouse.

To learn more about how Accusoft’s collection of processing solutions can help your team meet today’s LegalTech automation challenges, talk to one of our industry specialists.

While digital transformation initiatives have been climbing the FinTech priority list for years, Eli Rosner of Finastra notes that thanks to COVID-19, “It feels like the fast forward button has been pressed.” Firms must now embrace the realities of remote work and rising consumer expectations even as investor patience wears thin on reliable ROI.

The result is a FinTech landscape that’s more than meets the eye. To deliver on transformative deployments, companies must look past familiar fintech trends to uncover key challenges, assess acceleration issues, and recognize the realities of digital revolution.

The Challenges of Change for FinTech Companies

FinTech solutions emerged as harbingers of change. Frustrated by restrictive policies and cumbersome processes, financial technology companies embraced the market reality of application-driven enterprises capable of meeting consumers on their own terms. But even these tech-first solutions couldn’t predict current challenges. As noted by recent Deloitte research, FinTech firms now face both external and internal barriers to effective change.

Externally, investors remain an ongoing challenge as their patience for digital revenue delivery wears thin. While they recognize the need for transformative spend, they’re not willing to wait years on steady returns. Internally, lacking enterprise agility now hampers the ability of finance technology firms to deploy new partnerships and coordinate digital innovation at scale. Changing market forces are creating unprecedented challenges for FinTech firms.

The Acceleration of Adoption

Even as enterprises grapple with evolving change frameworks, the global pandemic continues to push companies out of their comfort zone, forcing firms to quickly implement multichannel solutions capable of connecting with customers anywhere, anytime. Consider that 35 percent of banking customers have embraced more online options, while contactless credit card payments have jumped by 40 percent over the past few months.  

In effect, the COVID-19 crisis has revealed a need for speed that’s far beyond the comfort zone of many FinTech firms. The result of this adoption acceleration is equal parts potential and problem. Companies can’t afford to slow down, but need a better view of what lies ahead.

The Realities of Revolution

To overcome emerging challenges and embrace agile application adoption at speed, FinTech firms must leverage a two-step process that first recognizes the real-life impact of digital revolutions and then deploys specific solutions to improve operational outcomes.

In practice, this means addressing four new realities:  

1. Customer-First Frameworks

As noted by Deloitte, the shift to customer centricity is often viewed as an enabler. If companies are able to deliver seamless, client-first experiences through common digital channels, they can significantly raise their reputational stock with consumers. But it’s one thing to recognize the reality of customer-first frameworks and another to implement them at scale. Here, fintech firms are best-served with workflow automation tools capable of streamlining key processes — such as loan applications and credit checks — to help reduce the time between customer inquiry and response.

2. Complex Document Functions

With clients and staff now working and interacting remotely, FinTech firms are facing a substantive uptick in the volume and variety of digital documents they receive — and they need to process ASAP. Here, complexity itself doesn’t represent the full spectrum of change, since regulatory and compliance controls are familiar challenges for FinTech companies. Instead, it’s the velocity of complex document processing that can quickly overwhelm even experienced FinTech software as they look to process applications and approvals at speed without sacrificing security or consistency. Comprehensive, industry-compliant document management tools can help FinTech firms bridge the complexity gap.

3. Comprehensive Data Foundations 

Spreadsheets remain essential for traditional firms and FinTech solutions alike. As data volumes grow, organizations face issues related to information-entry errors, version consistency, and data security. To ensure foundational finance data is accurately collected, consistently applied, and always protected, FinTech solutions need to deploy next-generation spreadsheet solutions capable of giving end-users the control and security they need.

Collaborative FinTech Forces

To deliver on client expectations around speed and security, FinTech solutions require SDKs that natively support document collaboration and control without introducing security risks such as unauthorized editing, downloading, or sharing. This means equipping their applications with the operational infrastructure that facilitates everything from editing and commenting to robust redaction, annotation, and file conversion.

FinTech in 2020: The Only Constant Is Change

The global business landscape in 2020 has been anything but predictable. Defined by pandemic pressures and driven by increasingly sophisticated digital initiatives, FinTech companies have managed what seemed impossible only a few years ago. They made a speedy shift to remote work that now delivers rapid customer responses while reducing overall risk.

However, it’s important to note that the market movement isn’t over. As COVID conditions continue to evolve and consumers recognize the value of advanced FinTech solutions, the only constant in FinTech industry this year is change.

Contracts are everywhere. From straightforward mobile phone agreements and facility use waivers to more in-depth arrangements that cover everything from large investments, parental custody, and long-term employment. As noted by Queen’s University Law, the ubiquity of contracts means they’re often entered and agreed to without so much as a second thought by citizens and consumers. 

But these contracts don’t exist in isolation. For every contract created and agreement drafted, there’s a legal contract specialist responsible for ensuring its accuracy, reliability, and relevance. Given both the increasing volume and complexity of these documents, more companies are advocating for a new advantage, contract automation. Here’s how it can help.

Identifying Key Issues

According to legal firm UpCounsel, it’s critical to identify potential contract issues before agreeing to any terms — no matter how favorable they appear. The same advice applies to contract creators, who can save time and money by ensuring agreements are accurate and complete before sending them to clients for review.

There are three key issues that automation can help address:

• Confidentiality — Secure handling of confidential information is critical in contract negotiation. By leveraging automation and editing solutions that keep contract negotiations in-browser and behind corporate firewalls, legal teams can ensure confidential information is not compromised so no significant and/or long-term harm is brought to the institution’s and/or individual’s data.

• Sensitive Information — Many contracts contain sensitive information that require limited dissemination. Here, legal teams need permission-based tools that empower them to track changes across contracts and create an end-to-end chain of custody to ensure information is viewed only by those who have permission to do so.

• Human Error — Errors happen, even in straightforward contract creation. Contract automation tools can help catch these common errors before they reach clients.

Lightening the Contract Load

The workload of legal contract managers is rapidly increasing. As noted by Law Technology Today, managers are often responsible for 20,000 to 40,000 contracts at any given time. 

Automation can help lighten the contract assembly load by empowering staff to easily insert common text strings or contract formats. Using advanced APIs that integrate with existing legal applications, teams get full control over contract generation and deployment at scale, in turn giving them more time to refine contract processes and tighten legal language.

Managing Force Majeure

One emerging challenge for legal contract negotiation centers around the concept of force majeure. Merriam Webster defines force majeure as “those uncontrollable events (such as war, labor stoppages, or extreme weather) that are not the fault of any party and that make it difficult or impossible to carry out normal business.” 

As noted by Law 360, the evolving Coronavirus pandemic means that many organizations will be examining their contracts to determine if force majeure clauses exist and apply, effectively allowing them to suspend or terminate agreements. The Law 360 piece points out that in most cases, force majeure is defined narrowly “to avoid undercutting the stability and predictability of commercial transactions.” 

The increasing scope of global health challenges, however, may require a reexamination of contracts at scale. Manually attempting this task could take weeks if not months for smaller firms. Here, contract automation tools that deliver straightforward, keyword-based search tools can help streamline the ability of contract specialists to find relevant clauses and determine their applicability, if any.

Contracts are everywhere — but they’re not effortless. Improve contract security, assembly, and search with advanced automation tools.