Legal content and technology provider LexisNexis officially launched its generative AI platform Lexis+ AI in South Africa on June 19. The tool, which is designed to support legal professionals by streamlining research, drafting and summarisation tasks, was previewed at an event in Johannesburg, marking the company’s first rollout of the technology in Africa.

Lexis+ AI integrates advanced large language models (LLMs) with the LexisNexis legal research ecosystem to help legal practitioners navigate complex and time-consuming legal queries with greater speed and accuracy.

The platform offers a suite of integrated capabilities that improve access tools for legal research and drafting purposes.

“[Generative AI platforms] are incredibly powerful tools and they're changing the way we operate as individuals in the economy and in the communities that we live in. And it’s much broader than just the legal industry.

“What we are excited about is to be able to marry the power of those technologies with the authoritative, trusted content that we have,” LexisNexis South Africa MD Ian Andrews said at the launch.

One of its core functionalities is its ability to interact with users in conversational natural language. This feature allows legal professionals to pose questions in plain English, rather than relying on complex Boolean operators or keyword strings.

The AI interprets these conversational prompts and delivers relevant legal guidance or information, drawn from the verified LexisNexis legal content repository. This intuitive interaction mirrors the experience of speaking with a knowledgeable colleague or assistant and is intended to reduce the friction often associated with traditional legal search methods.

In addition to interactive querying, Lexis+ AI is equipped with a drafting capability that can generate the first version of legal documents, including arguments and written submissions, based on user instructions.

This functionality is purpose-built for legal professionals and trained on legal-specific data to ensure relevance and structural appropriateness. The goal is to streamline the initial drafting process, freeing up time for review, refinement and strategic thinking.

The system also includes a summarisation tool, which is particularly useful for users who need to extract the essence of lengthy legal texts quickly. Rather than requiring practitioners to read through full judgments, statutes, or commentary, the AI can produce concise and accurate summaries that highlight the key insights. This is meant to accelerate research and improves the efficiency of legal review.

“It's key for us that we're able to provide these tools to help enhance the legal profession and to help legal practitioners be more effective in what they do,” Andrews said.

Lexis+ AI also includes analytical capabilities that enable it to evaluate legal documents for underlying themes, arguments and structural components.

By identifying patterns or pinpointing critical clauses and provisions, the platform supports deeper comprehension and more informed decision-making.

“One of the concerns out there is, will AI replace lawyers? We don't believe that for a second. There's a wealth of expertise, experience, judgment, complex knowledge and nuance that goes into the work of a lawyer.

“I don't believe AI is replacing that at all. So we don't talk about AI competing with lawyers or lawyers competing with machines, but we talk about lawyers plus AI becoming more effective in what they do,” Andrews said.

He said the tool would primarily be used to reduce the time spent on routine tasks.

“It's going to reduce the amount of spent on time consuming tasks like research, and it's going to free up legal practitioners then to focus on the more strategic advice and the high value opportunities in terms of working with their customers by reducing some of the more mundane, time-consuming tasks. I think that's the immediate future that these tools offer,” Andrews said.

CONTENT AND TECHNOLOGY

Lexis+ AI’s capabilities are built using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), a method that combines LLMs with real-time access to the LexisNexis Knowledge source.

The platform does not rely solely on pretrained models but retrieves and grounds responses in current legal texts, statutes, and commentary to ensure accuracy and reduce the risk of hallucinations – which is the term used for where the AI occasionally generates information that is factually incorrect, fabricated, or not supported by its training data or source material.

Lexis+ AI has been confined to the jurisdictional context of South African law for this release, and it draws from verified South African legal sources including statutes, regulations, and case law.

The system also allows access to commentary and analysis, giving legal professionals a comprehensive picture without requiring multiple search interfaces.

DATA PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY

Andrews explained that all of the platform’s AI responses were generated within a secured environment that was isolated from other users. This included protective measures to ensure that information entered by one user was not retained, shared, or accessible to another.

Moreover, the models are not trained on user prompts or inputs, which means that all communications remain fully confidential.

Data privacy is governed by the company’s global standards, which include compliance with international legal data protection laws. LexisNexis has robust infrastructure that includes encryption, access controls, and internal policies aimed at safeguarding sensitive information.

Lexis+ AI was developed under LexisNexis’ responsible AI framework, which includes multiple checks designed to limit bias, prevent misinformation and ensure reliability.

The content is validated by legal professionals and domain experts before integration, and a layered “human-in-the-loop” process ensures that outputs remain grounded in verified law and practice.

A key component of the responsible AI system is the evaluation of outputs for accuracy, completeness and potential bias.

Andrews assured that LexisNexis regularly consulted with ethics boards and subject-matter experts to refine its models and update internal guidelines.

Lexis+ AI is initially available through a limited-access insider programme. Through this programme, participating firms and users will gain early access to the platform along with exclusive insights into development, use cases, and best practices. Interested professionals can apply for early access through the LexisNexis website.

The launch of Lexis+ AI in South Africa forms part of the firm’s broader global strategy to bring generative AI tools into mainstream legal workflows. The company has previously launched the platform in other jurisdictions and is now expanding into emerging markets with a focus on localisation and jurisdiction-specific content.

“This is an incredibly important milestone for us as an organisation. It's an important milestone for the legal fraternity in South Africa as well, we believe. But it's also just the beginning. These tools will continue to evolve, continue to iterate, continue to improve, so that they become more and more effective in the lives of the customers that use them,” Andrews said.