This article is a portion of our new report, Evaluating AI for Justice: 7 Questions Every Organization Should Ask. If you'd like to read the full report, you can do so by clicking here.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a key component of the justice industry. Across courts, prosecutors’ offices, public defender agencies, probation and pretrial departments, and other justice organizations, leaders are exploring how AI can reduce administrative burden, automate routine tasks, and help staff operate more efficiently.
In response, technology vendors are producing an unprecedented wave of AI-powered capabilities: document summarization, meeting transcriptions, intelligent search capabilities, predictive recommendations, and so much more. Nearly every case management provider now offers some form of AI, making it increasingly difficult for justice agencies to distinguish meaningful innovation from marketing.
This has fundamentally changed the procurement conversation. Until recently, agencies evaluating technology were often asking a simple question:
What can this product do?
Today, an equally important question is emerging:
Can we trust how it does it?
Unlike some industries, justice organizations cannot afford to treat AI as a novelty or an experiment. Decisions made within the justice process carry significant legal, ethical, and societal consequences. A poorly governed AI implementation has the potential to undermine public confidence, introduce unnecessary risk, and create inefficiencies.
For these reasons, evaluating an AI solution requires looking beyond a list of features. The real differentiator is no longer whether a vendor offers artificial intelligence (that’s table stakes), but whether that intelligence will be implemented responsibly.
This paper explores seven questions every justice organization should ask before selecting an AI vendor. While individual AI features will continue to evolve at a remarkable pace, the principles behind responsible AI implementation are far more enduring. Agencies that evaluate vendors through this lens will be better positioned to invest in technology that delivers long-term value.
Question 1: Does the vendor have an AI strategy or just AI features?
Artificial intelligence has lowered the barrier to innovation.
Capabilities that once required years of research and development can now be built in weeks or even days. Things like document summarization, natural language search, coding capabilities, and content generation are available through widely accessible AI models. As a result, the presence of AI features alone is no longer a meaningful differentiator.
That reality presents a challenge for justice agencies. When every vendor can demonstrate similar capabilities during a product demonstration, how do decision-makers determine which solution is best suited for an environment where accuracy, accountability, and trust are paramount?
The answer lies in looking beyond what the AI does today and examining the strategy behind how it is developed, governed, and maintained.
An AI feature answers the question, “What can the technology do?”
An AI strategy answers much more important questions:
These questions are particularly important because AI is evolving at an extraordinary pace. A vendor focused solely on shipping new features may struggle to provide the long-term stability that justice agencies require.
By contrast, vendors with a mature AI strategy recognize that implementation is an ongoing discipline that includes governance, oversight, security, testing, and continuous evaluation.
Justice agencies should be cautious of vendors who emphasize speed above all else. Rapid innovation has undeniable value, but innovation without strategy can introduce unnecessary operational risk for buyers. In environments where agencies manage sensitive information and support critical public functions, responsible implementation often matters more than speed.
Ultimately, agencies should evaluate not only what a vendor has built, but how that vendor intends to manage and govern AI over the coming years.