Generative AI has raised significant questions for lawyers, neutrals, courts, and the organizations that serve them. I get it; we have never seen technology with as much potential as generative AI to transform our business and our practice. Add to that its rapid advancement and emerging capabilities, and it makes sense that there is anxiety about what generative AI will mean for the legal profession.
One subset of questions I hear from lawyers and neutrals concerns displacement: Will AI take over the work humans do? Those concerns are misplaced. AI won’t close doors for legal professionals. Instead, it will create brand new doors, and they will all be open.
At the American Arbitration Association® (AAA®), we’ve seen firsthand how AI can be a force multiplier for human expertise. We can use the technology to support the people who exercise judgment, freeing them from routine work so they can devote more time to complex questions and cases, their clients’ most challenging matters, and the work that humans uniquely do.
Increased Arbitrator Capacity Without Sacrificing Quality
One immediate opportunity AI presents is greater arbitrator capacity. Arbitrators today have to balance more cases, more documentation, and greater complexity with rising expectations for timely, consistent decisions. AI can rebalance these competing priorities.
Tools like Clearbrief help streamline the repetitive work — document review, timeline drafting, fact-checking, and organizing materials — so arbitrators can allocate their scarce time to the parts of a case that require judgment, experience, reasoning, and empathy.
At AAA, our AI Arbitrator, which launched this fall for two-party, documents-only construction disputes, tackles a different challenge. It gives parties another option for resolving disputes. The service accelerates the early, labor-intensive synthesis that can slow straightforward cases by surfacing key issues, summarizing the record, and organizing the parties’ claims and support. Parties review that synthesis to confirm accuracy before the AI generates any reasoning. A human arbitrator then reviews, refines, and issues the final award under their name.
By taking on routine but time-consuming tasks, AI frees arbitrators to handle more disputes without sacrificing fairness, quality, or deliberation. For practitioners and AAA Case Specialists, that added capacity allows them to focus on the complex cases that demand the highest level of judgment and client service. And parties gain an additional resolution option, enabling each dispute to be matched with the process best suited to its complexity and needs.
More Time for Complex, High-Impact Work
The time AI saves arbitrators can be redirected to the work where human judgment is invaluable, and where parties require it. That can mean complex, high-stakes disputes that demand experience, creativity, and careful reasoning, or cases where human empathy and collaboration can bring parties to a resolution.
AI changes how much time and attention arbitrators can give to the decisions that matter most. By reducing the repetitive document work and administrative lift built into many disputes, AI creates more space for the high-value skills that define arbitration: interpretation, credibility assessment, and contextual reasoning.
Arbitrators will not have less work; they will spend more time working at the top of their skill set, where parties receive the greatest value.
Expanding Access, Expanding the Profession
More dispute resolution options also serve a broader public good. Governed AI systems facilitate faster, more affordable, and accessible dispute resolution, particularly for individuals and small businesses that often struggle to navigate lengthy or costly processes. And the impact is not abstract. In documents-only construction cases, our AI Arbitrator can reduce resolution times by 20–25% and cut total costs by 35% or more.
Reducing time and cost means more disputes are resolved. Lowering barriers to accessing dispute resolution means more people can utilize the system, and legal professionals can serve a broader range of parties.
Better Early Information Means More Opportunities for Mediators
AI-supported prediction tools are already changing how parties approach disputes by providing earlier insight into the strengths, weaknesses, and potential outcomes of their disputes. This valuable information enables parties to make informed decisions about their dispute far earlier than in the traditional process.
That kind of early clarity can shift the trajectory of a dispute. When parties understand their risks sooner — where their arguments are strong, where they are vulnerable, and where uncertainty lies — they right-size their expectations. And realistic expectations lead to better dispute resolution.
That’s mediation’s sweet spot. Mediation works best when both parties recognize that continued conflict carries cost and risk and that there is value in resolving a dispute sooner. Early insights into the core of a dispute bring parties to the table sooner and create more opportunities for mediators to do what they do best: facilitate informed, constructive resolution.
We also see long-term potential for the AI Arbitrator to provide parties with this kind of early case intelligence, backed by strong governance, transparency, and human oversight.
The Future Is Human — Powered by AI
AI is not a threat to lawyers or neutrals. It’s an opportunity to do more of what they do best.
At the AAA, we will continue building tools that better support parties’ options for resolving disputes. And that means giving neutrals tools that let them focus on the parts of the dispute resolution process where they add the most value. As AI accelerates the front end of dispute resolution, it will open new pathways for arbitrators and mediators to use their human skills — judgment, empathy, and collaboration — delivering greater value to parties.
Technology enhances the delivery of justice, and people benefit.