AI in Practice: Using Design Thinking to build a culture of innovation for the AI era

Key takeaways:

• • • Human-centered AI strategy is essential — Successful AI adoption in law firms requires a strategy that is not static, but adaptive and human-centered. Firms must continuously evolve their approach to keep pace with technological advancements and prioritize the human experience in their transformation.

    • Design Thinking drives sustainable change — Incorporating Design Thinking into AI strategy helps foster innovation, cultural buy-in, and effective change management. This ensures that adoption is not just about technology, but also about engaging and empowering people across the organization.

    • Focus on collaboration and continuous learning — Creating cross-functional teams, running ideation workshops, and establishing feedback loops are practical steps to build a culture of innovation. By teaching Design Thinking as a core skill, law firms strengthen their capacity for curiosity, adaptability, and continuous improvement, allowing them to thrive in the AI era.

---

It’s here and it’s happening. The days of AI as a buzzword are behind us. We have entered an era in which AI is woven into the fabric of daily life, work, and business. And for law firms and legal professionals, this isn’t just about technology, it’s about rethinking how we work, collaborate, and deliver value.

Not surprisingly, 8 of 10 professionals surveyed predict that “AI will have a transformational or high impact on their work in the coming five years,” according to the 2025 Future of Professionals from Thomson Reuters. Some legal industry leaders even suggest AI is more transformative to the legal profession than the introduction of the billable hour or email.

So how should law firms and corporate legal teams prepare their attorneys, professionals, and business models for what’s ahead? The answer isn’t black and white or formulaic. Like AI itself, the approach must evolve. A successful AI strategy isn’t static; it’s adaptive, iterative, and human-centered.

That is essentially what the crux of an effective AI strategy should incorporate: the ability to evolve and pivot along with the pace of change and rapid advancements in technology. Of course, this raises a common question: If everything will change anyway, why bother?  Mostly because history tells us that waiting on the sidelines is rarely a winning strategy.

Today, organizations must embrace AI, and the key to unlocking sustainable adoption, change and opportunity may well lie in the incorporation of the core principles of Design Thinking.

Why Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is an approach to fostering innovation, solutions, and ideas incorporating a human-centric philosophy. It starts with identifying an opportunity or a problem, then moves through phases: brainstorming, developing and testing potential ideas, and ultimately implementing and scaling solutions.

Human experiences, perspectives, and empathy are not only the key to unlocking the benefits of Design Thinking but coincidentally, they are also mission critical for AI. Indeed, AI is only as strong as the humans guiding it. That’s why it’s essential to humanize the process by which we figure out how to use emerging technology and bring others along during the process to reduce fear, increase engagement, and evolve together.

The Future of Professionals shows that organizations with clearly crafted, transparent, and tangible strategic AI plans are “almost twice… as likely to already be experiencing revenue growth as a result of their AI investment.” But how can law firms merge the very clear need to have an AI strategy with the need for professionals to actually adopt and use the tools?

The strategy in and of itself needs to include an adoption plan. Adoption requires cultural buy-in. Recognizing that every firm and organization is different, incorporating a Design Thinking session around AI adoption across various user groups is a great way to embed the cultural and individual human experience that comes with change management.

Seyfarth’s approach: SEYmultaneous Advancement

At Seyfarth Shaw, we recognized the need for a new way of working that develops future-ready skills, fosters innovation, and creates a high-performance culture that empowers all employees to lead through change. SEYmultaneous Advancement is our firmwide approach to embed innovation and Design Thinking into the DNA of our people strategy.

The goal of the initiative is to avoid siloed innovation and instead foster a culture in which learning happens in all directions — across titles, practice areas, and departments. It breaks down traditional barriers between lawyers and business professionals and embeds innovation as a shared competency across all roles.

Collaborating across functions

With an approach rooted in Design Thinking, a standout feature is our live AI demo and ideation sessions, during which attorneys and non-attorneys share real use cases, brainstorm solutions, and learn from one another. Led by attorneys rather than traditional tech support, these sessions make AI tools more accessible and foster a culture of experimentation and peer learning.

The initiative also promotes a generational exchange of knowledge: junior attorneys explore new tech use cases while senior attorneys contribute subject matter expertise, creating a two-way learning model that accelerates both technical fluency and legal acumen.

Those who use and train AI in silos will likely not have the same level of success — and as varied success — as companies that embed a culture of collaborative ideation as part of AI adoption and use. Not only does collaboration and group approaches to ideation foster more ideas, but they also help to create broad awareness around the limitations and risks associated with AI.

Getting started: Putting Design Thinking to work

Law firms and corporate legal departments can begin leveraging Design Thinking today by taking the following steps:

Approach:

• • • Start with empathy and listen to pain points across roles.
    • Use collaborative workshops to define problems, not top-down memos.
    • Encourage “yes and…” thinking to open creative possibilities.

Action items:

• • • Create cross-functional teams (partners, associates, IT and operational professionals) to experiment with AI and share their findings.
    • Run ideation workshops in which participants can be celebrated and encouraged to suggest use cases without fear of being judged.
    • Pilot in sprints — start with smaller low-risk adoption tests before wider rollouts.
    • Establish feedback loops by implementing systems and regular channels for feedback throughout the process, not only at the end.
    • Identify champions across every office, level, and department to drive adoption, embrace ideas, and bring people together.

Beyond technology: Building a muscle

When law firms incorporate Design Thinking, it’s not simply a framework for onboarding new technology, but a muscle that strengthens every dimension of their legal practice. Learning to empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test doesn’t only make attorneys and professionals better at adopting AI skills; it makes them better problem-solvers, strategists, and innovators.

In client service, for example, Design Thinking helps attorneys move from What’s the legal answer? to What’s the best solution for this particular client’s context and need? That shift in perspective builds stronger connection and trust between lawyers and their clients.

Further, Design Thinking can spark curiosity and experimentation in business development, whether it be reimagining how services are packaged or designing more engaging client experiences. Professionals who creatively differentiate how to interface with clients will stand out.

Ultimately, fostering a culture of innovation where Design Thinking is taught as its own skill increases a law firm’s capacity for curiosity, adaptability, and continuous learning. AI will no doubt continue to accelerate the pace of change, but it is this human-centered, design-driven mindset that will determine which professionals and organizations thrive and evolve in the future of law.

And those organizations that thrive won’t just adopt AI, they’ll design their future with intention.

---

You can find out more about Design Thinking here