Spotlight from Silicon Valley
Advising many of the world’s leading technology companies, including over half of the Fortune 500, gives us first-hand insight into how global innovators are approaching AI adoption. From our hub in San Francisco, right in the heart of the US tech ecosystem, our team sees firsthand the pressures, priorities and practical challenges of navigating global AI governance, and the legal complexities of emerging technologies. Our US spotlight draws on this experience - read more below.
AI remains a top priority for tech and business leaders across the US. As companies work to understand its opportunities and challenges, AI tools continue to evolve at a rapid pace.
GenAI services have advanced significantly, with capabilities now widely adopted across B2B, B2C providers and internal teams, and agentic AI is poised to reshape the conversation around its use, particularly around data and IP, as it nears mainstream availability.
Most companies now recognise that excluding AI use is both difficult and sometimes counterproductive. Instead, they have focused their efforts on developing good practices, governance and guidance for their employees’ and consultant’s AI use. That said, the next challenge of ensuring compliance has surfaced, with employees using their own devices to circumvent restrictions.
Legislative measures have also come thick and fast. There is no US equivalent to the EU’s AI Act at present - nor will there be in the foreseeable future - but states such as California have introduced legislation addressing specific AI-related issues. Moreover, businesses subject to the EU’s AI Act have prioritised compliance, with the first obligations having come into force this year.
Those who leverage compliance and transparency as strategic assets (by deploying privacy-preserving AI, completing impact assessments, and validating digital provenance) will earn greater market trust and reduce long-term operational risk. Businesses must review their existing policies that govern staff use of AI tools with a particular focus on controlling data and associated IP, both in terms of potential leakage from the organisation outwards and contamination from outside material into the organisation. For now, such a review should include consideration of near-future evolutions of AI including agentic AI tools.
2026 will witness significant advancements in AI and quantum computing.
These developments will undoubtedly present even more legal challenges for in-house counsels, particularly with the emergence of domain-specific large language models, immersive and physical AI, and superpowered Agentic AI operating with unprecedented computing power.
Many US businesses are grappling with the challenges arising from widespread deployment and utilisation of AI across all business functions. Besides the need to establish robust AI governance frameworks and AI regulation compliance programs, they are also confronted with a significant number of practical legal inquiries that arise from the use of these innovative technologies. These enquiries primarily revolve around issues related to intellectual property ownership, privacy, and attorney-client privilege.
New AI regulations emerge almost weekly across jurisdictions, making compliance increasingly complex as rules often conflict or take difference approaches. While some regions, like the EU, have adopted stringent requirements, others, such as the UK and US, are opting for softer guidelines to foster innovation and maintain competitiveness. The EU Commission recently introduced an Omnibus package aimed at easing the level of requirements within the EU. I anticipate that stricter regions will continue to relax their regulations to enhance their economies’ competitiveness in the global AI landscape.