A Cambridge-based AI startup developing large language model (LLM) technology for law has been acquired by Thomson Reuters.
Founded in 2022, Safe Sign Technologies is training AI models to provide legal advice.
The startup said its LLM is being trained by world-leading lawyers in the hope of providing a more reliable legal AI than what can be offered by Big Tech AI products.
The acquisition is part of Thomson Reuters wider plan to incorporate AI into its content and technology services.
“Based on our internal assessment, we believe Safe Sign’s models have demonstrated industry-leading performance across a number of domain-specific evaluations,” said Thomson Reuters CTO Joel Hron.
“We believe that coupling them with our industry-leading content and expertise will help us deliver greater quality and performance from our AI solutions.”
Hron said the acquisition would support the development of CoCounsel, an AI assistant designed to support professionals in areas such as law and accounting.
“We believe Safe Sign Technologies has been at the cutting edge of legal AI research since 2022, achieving significant progress in its goal to create the world’s best proprietary legal LLM,” said Safe Sign Technologies co-founders Alexander Kardos-Nyheim and Dr Jonathan Schwarz.
“Safe Sign’s world-leading team—drawn from Cambridge, DeepMind, Harvard and MIT—is pleased to join with Thomson Reuters to become a major scientific and industrial disrupter in legal AI.”
The companies did not disclose the acquisition cost.
Other startups using generative AI in the legal sector include Luminance and Robin AI.