An overview of how the adoption of generative AI tools is transforming everyday work in legal contracts, professional services, filmmaking, and programming
Professional services, filmmaking and coding are among the first to use the technology in everyday operations LinkedIn: David Wakeling . Twitter: @emmavj LinkedIn: David Wakeling : Excellent FT article on what generative AI actually means in the A&O workplace to people using it daily. In simple terms, a productivity gain. … Twitter: Emma Jacobs / @emmavj : The impact of AI on workers and labour relations If a producer can use AI to shoot out a 100-page script, then they can go to the writer and say, 'I'll pay you $50,000 to rewrite this instead of the $200,000 for you to write it on the page'. https://www.ft.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This FT piece pulls together threads the coverage has been building since early 2023: Allen & Overy's David Wakeling described putting OpenAI's Harvey to work drafting legal documents at one of the world's largest law firms, and the pattern has since spread through adjacent professions. The unifying claim across law, code, film and professional services is the same — generative AI lands as a productivity gain inside existing workflows rather than a headcount replacement.
First-order effects
- At firms like A&O, lawyers get first drafts of contracts and documents from tools such as Harvey, compressing hours of routine drafting into review-and-edit work.
- In programming, experienced developers absorb tasks previously assigned to junior developers as companies deploy the technology to cut costs.
Second-order effects
- Vendors in contract lifecycle management face a wave of acquisitions as generative AI capabilities trigger a flurry of deals and experts anticipate further consolidation in that market.
- Labour relations become the battleground where the productivity gain gets split: writers' bargaining power hinges on whether AI output counts as a substitute draft or a disposable starting point.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the apprenticeship model itself restructures — the junior tasks in law, code and screenwriting that trained the next senior generation are precisely the ones being automated, leaving firms to rethink how expertise is built.
- Value migrates toward judgment and editing: the durable human role in each profession shifts from producing the first artifact to evaluating, correcting and taking responsibility for it.
The trend: Knowledge and creative work are converging on a common structure where AI produces the first draft and humans price their labor around revision and judgment — a shift already visible in law, code, contracts software and Hollywood alike.