2The Landscape

Who makes it, what it is, and what’s beyond the model.

Four categories of legal AI, the companies and models underneath, and the doors a model uses to reach information it was never trained on.

General categories of legal AI

Four kinds of tool.

Foundation models, enterprise platforms, research tools, and bespoke builds. Most legal products are one of the last three sitting on top of the first.

General purpose

Foundation models

Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini

Chatbots and the models behind them.

Best forEveryday drafting and analysis

Platforms

Enterprise tools

Harvey, Legora

Legal platforms built on the big models.

Best forFirm-wide rollout with security controls

Research

Legal research tools

Lexis+ AI, CoCounsel

AI added to the research databases lawyers already use.

Best forFinding and checking authority

Custom built

Bespoke tools

Custom GPTs, agents

Tools built in-house or by a product owner around one workflow or one specific product.

Best forRepeatable tasks unique to specific use cases

The major AI players

Who makes it, what you chat with, and the models underneath.

Lineups as of September 2026. These change every few weeks, so treat the model names as a snapshot.

Company	Chatbot	Top models	Legal plug-in
Anthropic	Claude	Opus 5.5Sonnet 5.5Fable 5.1	Claude for LegalMay 2026 · 12 practice-area plug-ins and 20+ connectors
OpenAI	ChatGPT	GPT-6 AstraGPT-6 SolGPT-6 Luna	Astra for LawSept. 2026 · legal GPT-6 plus 26 partner plug-ins
Google	Gemini	Gemini 3.1 ProGemini 3.8 FlashGemini 3.1 Deep Think	Gemini Enterprise for LegalAug. 2026 · legal agents plus partner connectors
xAI	Grok	Grok 4.7Grok 4.6	No legal-specific plug-in announced
Meta	Meta AI	Muse Spark 1.3Muse Glimmer	No legal-specific plug-in announced

Flagship modelMicrosoft Copilot runs on partner models (OpenAI, Anthropic) plus Microsoft’s own MAI models.

The legal AI players

Built just for lawyers, on top of the big models, and valued accordingly.

Both run on foundation models from the companies above. Private-market valuations from each company’s latest funding round, as of September 2026.

HarveySan Francisco $15.5B Sept. 2026 · $550M raise

80% of the Am Law 100
5 of the Fortune 10
Revenue past $350M

LegoraStockholm $5.55B Mar. 2026 · $550M Series D · reported in talks at ~$8.5B

Over half of the Am Law 50
2,100+ firms and legal teams
$200M+ annual revenue

Beyond the model

The model is the engine. These are the doors.

On its own, a model is smart but sealed in a room. Everything useful it does with your case comes through one of six doors. Click a door to see what it opens.

The model alone

Smart, but sealed in a room.

Knows only its training dataFrozen at a cutoff date; nothing since.

Has never seen your fileNo discovery, no police reports, no local rules.

Fills gaps with confidenceMissing facts become plausible guesses: hallucinations.

RememberEvery door in is also a door out. Know what your tool is connected to before you put a case in it.