European law firms have largely moved beyond the question of whether to adopt artificial intelligence. This report presents the findings of the 2026 Legaltech Hub–Lexpo European AI Survey, capturing responses from law firms across Europe and providing insight into the current state of AI adoption, governance, deployment, and future priorities. It also draws on comparative data from the United States to identify areas of convergence and divergence between the world’s two largest legal markets.
This report introduces the Legal AI Transformation Framework, a seven-stage model describing the journey from strategy and governance through to transformation. While individual firms will progress at different rates, the survey suggests that many European firms have already advanced through the early stages of governance, experimentation, and initial deployment. The challenge now lies in adoption, operationalization, and ultimately transformation.
Five findings emerged from this year’s survey.