How do we keep control of what our firm spends on AI?

Controlling AI spend is a procurement problem rather than a technology problem. Decide in advance who can commit the firm to a cost, be clear whether you are paying for seats, for usage or for something bundled into software you already have, and put the renewal date in the diary the day you sign. Firms rarely overspend because of one large decision; they overspend because small commitments accumulate quietly across departments.

Know what you are actually paying for

AI pricing in the legal market falls into a few recognisable shapes, and the shape matters more than the headline figure.

• Per seat, per month or per year. You pay for named users whether or not they log in. Predictable, and easy to over-buy.
• Per use or by credit. You pay for what you consume. Harder to forecast in the first few months, but it does not charge you for people who never open it.
• Bundled into existing software. An AI feature added to your case management system, your research subscription or your office suite, sometimes at no extra cost initially, sometimes at an uplift on renewal.
• Free or low cost consumer tiers. No line in the accounts, which is precisely the problem: the firm is exposed without a contract, a supplier relationship or a record of who is using what.

Then there are the costs that do not appear on the invoice: time spent configuring the tool, time spent training people, the fee earner hours spent evaluating three products, and the administrative burden of managing accounts and leavers. These are real and they are usually larger in the first quarter than the licence fee.

Decide who may commit the firm

Most uncontrolled AI spend starts with a credit card and good intentions. A fee earner finds something useful, pays for it personally or on expenses, and the firm now has client information in a product nobody has assessed.

Set a short rule and circulate it:

1. No AI tool is used on client work until it has been approved.
2. One named person, usually the practice manager or the partner who owns technology, approves new tools and signs contracts.
3. Personal subscriptions used for firm work are not reimbursed, and are not permitted.
4. Any spend above an agreed threshold goes to the partners, as it would for any other supplier.

The point is not bureaucracy. It is that you cannot control a budget you cannot see, and you cannot run a confidentiality assessment on a tool you do not know exists.

The usual leaks

When a firm looks properly at its AI spending, the same three leaks turn up.

Unused seats. You bought twelve licences in the enthusiasm of the first month. Four people use the tool weekly, three use it occasionally, five have logged in once. Check usage before every renewal and buy for the people who actually work with it.

Duplicate capability. The research provider adds an AI feature, the case management system adds one, and someone has separately bought a standalone assistant. Two of the three may be doing the same job. Decide which one you are standing behind and stop paying for the others.

Leavers and movers. Seats attached to people who left in March are still being billed in September. Add AI accounts to the leaver checklist alongside email, the case management system and the building pass.

Judge the spend against work, not against enthusiasm

A sensible review does not ask whether people like the tool. It asks what work it touched and what that work would otherwise have cost.

Pick two or three concrete tasks: getting on top of an inherited file, reading a disclosure set, drafting a first version of a letter. For each, note roughly how long it used to take, how long it takes now, and who is doing it. If a task has moved from a senior fee earner to a paralegal with proper supervision, that is a real saving even if the clock reading barely changes.

Be honest when the answer is unflattering. If a tool is used twice a month by one person, it is a hobby, not infrastructure, and the budget should reflect that. It is far easier to stop paying for something in month four than in year three.

Diary the renewal before you need it

Annual contracts renew automatically more often than not, and the notice period is usually measured in weeks before the anniversary. Put two dates in the firm's diary: one for the review, well before the notice deadline, and one for the deadline itself.

At the review, ask the supplier for usage figures, confirm the seat count, ask what the renewal price will be and whether any uplift applies, and check how you would export or delete your data if you left. A supplier who cannot answer those questions quickly has told you something useful about what the next year would be like.

Where Alesis fits

Alesis is funded by credit rather than a subscription. The first firm a person sets up starts with £25 of free credit, no card needed, and each colleague who joins with a verified account adds £15, for up to 20 colleagues; after that the firm tops up only when it chooses. Nothing recurs, there are no feature tiers, and there is no renewal date to diary.