By Legal Futures Associate InfoTrack
Experts across the conveyancing industry are warning the profession that the benefits of AI will be undermined if firms rush to adopt it without sufficient strategies in place, following discussions at this year’s Digital Conveyancing Summit held last week.
The biennial event, hosted by leading end-to-end digital conveyancing platform InfoTrack, brought together almost 500 lawyers and technology experts at The Minster Building in London to explore how data, AI, and automation are reshaping daily workflows and what the best tools are for the job.
Speakers at the event included Gajendra Gupta, Head of Pricing & Commercial Management, Savings and Insurance at Barclays; Sammy Pahal, Managing Director at UK PropTech Association; and Matt Thomas, Product Manager at HM Land Registry.
Throughout the day, panels and breakout sessions discussed the growing role of digitalised processes across law, finance and property, as well as when to know the limitations and risks it can in turn create. From post-completion bottlenecks to preparing for a new era of FCA supervision, the Summit’s concluding takeaway was clear. Whilst everyone agreed that standing still on AI was no longer an option, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Rich Hill, Chief Technology Officer at InfoTrack, said: “Firms are increasingly embracing technology. Much of this is because the cost of using it, which has historically been a barrier to adoption, is coming down. Firms also need to be at the crest of change rather than waiting for everyone else to move first. But the technology itself isn’t necessarily the difficult part – the challenge is putting a proper strategy and framework in place to allow everyone to use it with purpose, precision and productivity in mind.”
This sentiment was heavily reflected in the results of the 2026 Digital Conveyancing Maturity Index (DCMI), which were unveiled at the event. Whilst the Index saw law firms’ Digital Maturity Score rise from 54.4% in 2024 to 59.8% in 2026, an increase of 9.9% in relative terms, it also saw inconsistent results surrounding AI. 69% described AI adoption as individual experimentation, where only 18% had rolled it out across a team, and 14% said it was embedded as standard practice, pointing to a lack of strategic direction.
A number of other warnings emerged throughout the discussions:
- Don’t automate chaos – Firms were urged to address inefficient processes, fragmented systems, poor-quality data and disconnected workflows before scaling the use of AI, instead of digitising existing problems. Angela Morreale-Devereaux, Legal Specialist at LawY, noted: “Some firms are really forward thinking about tech and want to train staff in everything that is available. But I’ve been speaking to lots of people who don’t know what to do with the tools… From a strategic point of view if you’re paying employees to spend a certain amount of time on the job, but they’re spending hours doing something AI can do in 10 minutes, then are you really getting value out of what you’re paying them?”
- Keep humans in the loop – AI should augment professional expertise rather than replace it; human judgement and oversight remain essential for client service, risk-management and decision making. Peter Ambrose, Managing Director at The Partnership said: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. If you have a software vendor who says it can do everything for you, don’t listen. Some things humans need to do.”
- Prepare for a new era of digital supervision – Regulators are expected to take an increasingly data-driven approach to oversight. Firms that cannot effectively manage, govern and report on their data may struggle to meet evolving regulatory expectations and will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Steve Brett, Founder of E3 compliance training, said that showing engagement and willing is key, noting that the regulators “understand the challenges” and that “we don’t want an ‘us and them’ type situation.”
- Understand deepfakes and fake beards – Fraud is becoming increasingly sophisticated and creating new risks for conveyancers, reinforcing the need for robust digital verification processes and risk-based checks. Paul Clements, Product Manager at InfoTrack, said: “For decades, identity fraud in property transactions meant a forged signature, a stolen passport, or literally someone in a bad wig sitting across the table. It was analogue, clumsy, and detectable by an aware conveyancer. Today’s fraudster doesn’t need to leave home. Generative AI can clone a face, a voice, and a signature well enough to pass a video call or a document check and do it at scale.”
- Don’t underestimate the people challenge – Firms that focus solely on technology without addressing culture, leadership and change management are setting themselves up for failure – not to mention an array of cybersecurity and compliance risks. Sam Jordan, Chief Operating Officer at InfoTrack UK said: “Conveyancers are on the whole embracing AI. The challenge now is to shift away from individual experimentation to a more coordinated, firmwide approach underpinned by a clear AI strategy… Problems occur when people use technology that isn’t designed for conveyancing or legal practice. If you’re letting people use any kind of AI, client data can end up disappearing into open models. Purpose-built software is the way forward.”
Reflecting on the day’s discussion, Sam added: “There are lots of people who say conveyancing is broken, but there are over a million property transactions a year. Change is needed buy you have to start from where you are – if you try to change everything at once, you won’t change anything at all.”
