The future of legal work isn’t about AI sitting beside professionals – it’s about AI being embedded in the work itself. Thomson Reuters marks a pivotal moment in that transformation as CoCounsel Legal is now available in the UK, introducing a new standard for what professional-grade agentic AI can deliver.
Why Agentic AI Matters
The distinction between AI copilots and agentic AI solutions isn’t just semantic – it’s fundamental to how legal work gets done. While copilots offer suggestions and assistance, agentic AI like CoCounsel Legal takes on complex, multi-step professional work with advanced reasoning, authoritative content integration, and deep subject matter expertise.
The UK launch of CoCounsel Legal represents more than geographic expansion. It’s the convergence of critical innovations: Deep Research capabilities on both Practical Law and Westlaw Advantage, and seamless integration with existing legal technology ecosystems including Microsoft 365, document management systems, and Thomson Reuters HighQ.
Sam Dixon, chief innovation officer at Womble Bond Dickinson, said: “We knew we needed to bring in a GenAI legal assistant to help us deliver the best possible service we can for clients. For us, the fact that CoCounsel had the ability to lean on the Westlaw content and the Practical Law content was really beneficial. And it already integrates with a lot of the rest of our legal tech stack, such as HighQ.”
CoCounsel Legal’s native integration with existing workflows means legal professionals don’t have to choose between innovation and productivity – they get both.
“We have found the working relationship with Thomson Reuters very collaborative, transparent and supportive – real partners who go the extra mile to support us in getting value out of our relationship,” said Christina Demetriades, global operating officer, Accenture Legal. “CoCounsel is a massive opportunity for our function – we see it as a way of displacing outside counsel spend and augmenting our team in practice – I see it helping build the Future Ready Legal professional. I have already used it myself to prepare advice for our business on an upcoming opmodel transformation. It was a great value add.”
Deep Research: A Global First for UK Legal Professionals
The UK launch introduces several industry firsts. Deep Research on Practical Law debuts globally in the UK, with its U.S. release set for February. The new Westlaw Advantage brings professional-grade agentic AI research capabilities specifically tailored to UK legal content. Most significantly, both content sets are unified in a single platform, eliminating the need to navigate between systems while delivering comprehensive results across practice areas.
What makes Deep Research genuinely transformative is its ability to reason, plan, and execute comprehensive legal research autonomously. It doesn’t just retrieve information – it generates multi-step research plans, traces its logic with transparent reasoning, and delivers structured reports backed by Westlaw and Practical Law citations. Legal professionals can hand off complete research questions to an AI that understands the assignment, explains its process, sources its answers, and builds argument foundations, all with human oversight.
The Foundation for Professional AI
David Wong, chief product officer, Thomson Reuters, said: “Professional-grade AI is fundamentally changing how legal work gets done, and with CoCounsel Legal, we’re delivering enterprise-ready agentic AI that helps UK law firms and legal departments future-proof their practices. This isn’t just about efficiency – it’s about empowering legal professionals with AI that reasons through complex problems, integrates seamlessly into existing workflows, and scales across entire organizations while maintaining the trusted, authoritative foundation our customers depend on. This isn’t just about convenience – it’s about delivering real value to our clients and their work.”
That foundation – combining advanced reasoning models, authoritative content, deep subject matter expertise, and native integration – represents the essential components needed to complete complex, multi-step professional work. It’s what separates professional-grade AI from consumer-grade tools, and what makes CoCounsel Legal uniquely positioned to transform how legal work happens in practice, not just in theory.
Looking Ahead
The UK launch of CoCounsel Legal signals a broader shift in how professional services will be delivered. As agentic AI capabilities mature and expand, the question isn’t whether AI will transform legal work – it’s whether legal professionals and organizations will embrace tools purpose-built for their needs or settle for generic solutions that promise much but deliver little.
For UK legal professionals ready to explore what professional-grade agentic AI can do for their practice, the opportunity is here. The future of legal work isn’t waiting – it’s embedded in the work itself.
Learn more about CoCounsel Legal in the UK at MeetCoCounsel.co.uk.
