How to cope with AI anxiety

It’s confession time for our InView columnist. Boldly going where most people who work in tech wouldn’t dare, she admits, “I’m tired of AI.” If you share Ali’s sentiments but also know you need to revive your AI mojo, take heed of her advice.

When the InView team asked me to write a regular column on AI, they probably didn’t anticipate this being the starting point. But the noise has become so overwhelming, and I keep coming back to the same thought, I can’t be the only one feeling this?

The legal profession is leading the charge when it comes to AI innovation. According to The Legaltech Hub, the number of legal tech products incorporating generative AI has almost doubled in the past year, from 400 in February to 728 in September. Nearly twenty percent of these now include agentic AI.

Much of my AI fatigue may be self-inflicted. As an AI enthusiast I compulsively follow AI news feeds and subscribe to far too many newsletters. But with AI updates turning into a 24-hour news cycle, I realised that keeping abreast of developments was starting to become counter-productive to embracing AI. Recently, I’ve been trying to deliberately disconnect from the hype and instead focus on work that adds real, measurable value.

Developing your skill set is imperative

A common refrain is that it’s no longer enough to be great at the law, that to become a legal leader, you also need to master and showcase a wide range of soft skills. As much as I’d love to believe that doing great lawyering is enough, the reality is that it’s not. Focusing solely on the day-to-day tasks that make you feel productive might be familiar and comforting, but it won’t be enough to move you forward on its own.

In an AI-driven world, that reality is even starker. The value of simply “doing the work” is declining. The value of strategically shaping, guiding, and managing work is growing. So, as much as I dislike it, investing time and energy in developing broader skills and staying abreast of AI is now a strategic necessity. The question is how.

With my newfound appreciation for taking the “less is more” approach to AI, here are my tips for getting the most out of AI.

Invest in tech: Adopt technology for the high-volume, low-value parts of your work. Even if it feels unnatural at first, challenge yourself to use AI-powered tools. In the short term, it may slow you down, but over time, your understanding and ability to apply AI intelligently will work to your advantage.

Be open to change: Be willing to challenge long-held assumptions and try to stay open and curious about areas that don’t necessarily excite you, like AI. I worked in AI before it became mainstream, and I have at times been deliberately obstinate about its value, favoring existing and familiar technology and processes. That resistance didn’t help anyone, least of all me.

Pick your battles: Or rather, be strategic in how you fight them. Adopting a wholesale anti-AI mentality is a losing battle. AI is here to stay. If you’re sceptical about how AI proponents believe it will be applied to your work, take the time to understand it deeply so you can make considered, productive points about how, when, and why it should or should not be applied.

Master the art of listening: As lawyers, we often pride ourselves on how clearly we can articulate our points, but this is only a small part of communication. Don’t avoid engaging in difficult conversations. When your technical counterparts get excited about the potential of AI to automate significant aspects of your work, resist the urge to go on the defensive. As cliché as it is, if you listen to understand, not to respond, you’ll end up reaching better, more productive outcomes.

Tune out the noise: Log out of LinkedIn, unsubscribe from the endless newsletters, and focus on small, actionable steps. If you’re testing AI solutions, such as contract review tools, select one or two to trial for a couple of weeks. Then, pick the one that adds real value. Don’t obsess over finding the “perfect” solution. You don’t need to make the best choice; you need to make a choice. The real hands-on experience post-implementation is where meaningful learning will happen. Momentum is what matters.

We don’t need to be nauseatingly optimistic about AI. There are real risks (such as those to humanity) that deserve our attention. However, committing to curiosity, being open to being wrong, and tuning out the hype are essential if we want to set ourselves and our organizations up for long-term success.

Former lawyer Ali Meredith is the Director of Product Partnerships at LawVu.

Check out the AI guide for in-house counsel and The Legaltech Hub,