The Economist Enterprise GC Summit brought senior legal leaders to New York on September 15 to talk about risk, talent, and the growing pressure on the GC role. Our Paragon team spent the day in sessions and hallway conversations, and a few themes came through loud and clear.
In one word: yes. Last year, the tone around AI shifted from hype to realism. This year, attorneys showed signs of AI content fatigue. Interest is still high, but AI is no longer the only thing on their minds.
Part of that fatigue comes down to volume. With so many AI tools and vendors competing for attention, attorneys are getting pickier.
“Attorneys are discerning buyers, and there’s a lot of noise in the space. Their patience for sifting through it to get to quality seems low,”
said Shannon Murphy, VP of Recruiting at Paragon.
So how do legal teams cut through the noise? By starting with their own workflows, not the vendor pitch. That’s the approach behind Paragon’s AI for Legal: An Adoption Framework and Technology Guide, which walks legal leaders through governance, business goals, and workflows before they ever evaluate a tool. It’s a timely gap to close: Paragon’s research found that 56% of organizations still lack formal AI governance.
GCs are selective about who they do business with. They want firms and vendors that reflect their values and take the time to truly understand their business.
“They want partners, not providers,”
said Shannon.
Once GCs find that kind of partner, they tend to stick with them. Switching comes with real costs, so a newcomer needs a truly compelling reason to unseat an incumbent.
That’s why getting the partnership right from the start matters. The strongest relationships begin with a clear view of what work belongs where, which is the heart of rightsourcing: aligning the right people with the right work at the right time.
In our conversations about potential roles, three areas stood out:
Just as telling was what didn’t come up. None of the legal leaders we spoke with mentioned needing attorneys for general commercial contracts work. That could be because the market is saturated, because AI is making contract work more efficient, or because demand is simply lower right now. Either way, it points to a shift toward more specialized expertise.
That’s where flexible talent can make a difference. When specialized needs spike, teams can bring in the right expertise without committing to a full-time hire. Our GC’s Guide to Rightsourcing breaks down when to use in-house talent, outside counsel, or flexible support.
GCs are no longer just weighing legal risk. They’re also being asked to account for forces largely outside their control, like weather, climate change, and shifting political administrations.
“The GC seat is growing increasingly complex,”
said Easton McFerren, Account Executive at Paragon.
The economic outlook shared at the summit showed just how much is in play. Speakers pointed to the Iran war as the biggest drag on global growth, mainly through higher energy prices, while AI has had the largest positive impact. Looking ahead, global GDP is expected to slow, with a recession expected in the Middle East, and climate change, is adding to inflation risk across industries.
Even AI isn’t immune to the shift. Speakers expect some of the excitement around it to cool as organizations put more focus on risk management. For many legal teams, that focus is overdue. In Paragon’s AI Under Review survey, 57% of legal teams said they’d been asked to risk-assess an AI tool after it was already deployed.
Those pressures come into sharper focus when you look at what could go wrong next. Summit speakers ranked five risks to the global economy, rated by probability and impact:
AI shows up twice on the list, as both a financial risk and a labor market risk. For GCs, that’s a reminder that AI isn’t just a tool to adopt. It’s also a risk to manage across the business.
GCs are increasingly expected to uphold company values in their decisions, even when that means pushing back on leadership.
“The C-suite may sometimes make decisions based on popularity or prevailing buzzwords, but the GC’s responsibility is to assess those decisions through the lens of the rule of law,”
said Easton.
That responsibility comes with a bigger seat at the table. Historically, GCs often reported to the CFO. Now, more of them report directly to the CEO, a sign that legal is shaping broader business strategy, not just giving legal advice.
GCs are carrying more than ever, from economic uncertainty to geopolitical risk, and they’re stepping into a bigger strategic role at the same time. In response, they’re tuning out the AI noise, choosing partners who share their values, and hiring for the specialized skills their teams need next.
Ready to build a team that can keep up? See how rightsourcing works with Paragon.
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