GC AI today announced the results of a new return-on-investment (ROI) study indicating that in-house legal teams utilizing its platform reclaim an average of 14 hours per week and enhance the speed, quality, and cost-effectiveness of their daily operations.
The study, based on a December 2025 survey of over 100 active GC AI customers, quantified time savings, outside counsel impact, and output quality across common in-house legal workflows, comparing them to generalist AI tools. Key findings include an average reclamation of 14 hours per user per week, with power users (90th percentile and above) saving over 5 hours daily.
Furthermore, the study noted a 14% reduction in outside counsel spend and a 21% increase in accuracy compared to generalist AI tools. These results were consistently reported by general counsel, associate general counsel, in-house counsel, and legal operations professionals.
Cecilia Ziniti, co-founder and CEO of GC AI, stated, “Other companies talk about ROI. We have the data.” She added, “The takeaway is simple: legal AI is meaningfully changing in-house work – replacing hours of manual effort and outside counsel dependence with faster, higher-quality in-house execution.”
Referencing the ACC Law Department Management Benchmarking Report, which indicates a median company spends $1.8 million annually on outside counsel, a 14% reduction translates to approximately $252,000 in annual savings, which exceeds the cost of AI software.
Customers affirmed these benefits. Wendra Liang, Legal Counsel at Vercel, commented, “I don’t need to call a copyright lawyer for this question anymore. I have a copyright lawyer on my phone or on my desktop.” Cameron Clark, Head of Legal at Arc’teryx, stated, “We couldn’t do our job without GC AI. The use cases are so broad – from comms to contracts to strategy – it pays for itself in weeks.”
Beyond quantifiable savings, GC AI users reported reallocating reclaimed time to strategic advising, proactive risk planning, deeper cross-functional collaboration, and achieving more sustainable workloads.
These findings align with a significant shift in AI adoption among in-house lawyers. GC AI’s ongoing survey data shows that in June 2024, 56% of lawyers reported never using AI in their work, a figure that dramatically shifted to 55% reporting daily or hourly AI usage by December 2025. This indicates legal AI has transitioned into regular production workflows for in-house legal teams.
The ROI analysis relied on self-reported data from a structured survey of over 100 active GC AI customers conducted in December 2025, capturing time saved, perceived accuracy against generalist AI tools, and changes in outside counsel expenditure.
GC AI, founded by Cecilia Ziniti and Bardia Pourvakil, positions itself as an AI workspace for in-house legal teams. It offers industry-leading accuracy, Microsoft Word integration, and enterprise-grade security and compliance. The company serves over 1200 legal teams, including more than 50 public companies, 25 unicorns, and major enterprises such as Webflow, Bass Pro Shops, Hitachi, Vercel, and Liquid Death. It is based in San Francisco with a distributed team.
