Debevoise’s Chambers-ranked artificial intelligence (AI) practice is the country’s premier AI practice for financial services and insurance clients. Our AI practice pairs the leaders of our Chambers Band 1 Securities Enforcement team, our Band 1 Insurance Regulatory practice, and our Band 1 Trademark and Copyright practice with our market-leading AI practice run by Avi Gesser, who is ranked Chambers Band 1 for AI and has more than a decade of experience advising financial services clients on AI issues.
Debevoise’s AI practice is currently advising approximately 150 clients—including 100 financial services and insurance clients—on a broad range of AI issues, including: responding to AI regulatory exams; negotiation of complex AI data licensing agreements; AI deal diligence; board oversight responsibilities for AI risk; AI vendor risk management; AI policies and governance; AI data privacy and scraping issues; risk assessments for core AI use cases; managing bias risk for AI insurance underwriting and consumer credit; defending against deepfakes and other AI-enabled cybersecurity attacks; deploying customer-facing chatbots; implementing AI webmeeting tools (such as Zoom AI Companion and Teams Copilot for meeting summaries, transcriptions, and recordings); and training and deploying foundation models.
At the core of our practice is a dedicated team of several full-time AI lawyers, who are organized into specialized AI subject-matter teams and work closely with regulatory compliance experts in other practice groups who have the technical proficiency and government experience to help clients take a risk-based approach to applying existing laws to novel AI use cases and anticipate how new AI laws may be applied to our clients’ use of AI.
Debevoise’s AI team has also developed an innovative, monthly subscription-based Suite of Tools for Assessing AI Risk (STAAR). The legal industry has recognized the STAAR platform as a visionary model for AI legal services in the Law.com article, “Debevoise & Plimpton Is Building a New Model for Delivering AI Adoption Advice” and in the Law360 article, Debevoise Builds Tool To Help In-House Attys Assess AI Risk.
The STAAR platform contains continuously updated AI legal resources, including policies and training materials, governance lessons, regulatory trackers, and detailed descriptions of generic AI use cases, each of which has been vetted through the Debevoise AI Risk Assessment Tool (“DART”). Each DART use case provides the recommended AI tools and configurations; sample prompts, reference materials, and outputs; lists of applicable risks and corresponding mitigations; technical implementation suggestions; and guidance for pilot programs.
Debevoise serves as trusted AI counsel to approximately 150 clients, including many of the world’s leading asset managers and broker-dealers, several major insurers, global consulting firms, and other market leaders. We provide practical advice on AI-related governance, regulatory, transactional, and litigation matters, from granular-level tool onboarding to enterprise-wide AI frameworks. Because of the number of years we have been advising on AI, and the number of clients we are helping, there are few, if any, issues we have not encountered. Our unparalleled insight enables us to provide valuable benchmarking, develop industry best practices, and accelerate responsible AI adoption without dramatically increasing risk.
AI Advisory, Governance & Regulatory Readiness
AI Investigations, Regulatory Examinations & Defense
AI Transactions & Licensing
AI Intellectual Property, Content & Litigation
AI Policymaking & Regulatory Engagement