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AI isn’t replacing lawyers — it’s changing what great legal work looks like.

In this interview, Macarena Gonzalez Derqui, Head of Legal AI at Signify, explains how AI has become a daily working partner for in-house legal teams. From custom AI agents to faster, smarter decision-making, she shares practical insights on how lawyers can reclaim time for what truly matters: judgment, strategy, and impact.

Read on to discover how legal teams can lead — not follow — the AI transformation.

What inspired you to take legal practice into the world of artificial intelligence, and how has your perspective on the legal profession evolved since you began this journey?

I studied technology law and have always been intrigued by the intersection between law and technology. However, when genAI appeared in our lives a few years ago, I immediately saw its potential for our legal team.

For the first time, the barrier of coding or complex technical tools disappeared. Lawyers could build their own solutions and their own custom assistants, tailored to their daily tasks, using just natural language. We could test, refine, and control the content ourselves. That was a turning point for me. Suddenly, legal professionals were not just users of technology, but active creators of their own tools.

That realization opened a window for me and I started exploring the potential of AI in our sector more deeply. After three years, the difference in how we work is already very clear. Our work is faster, more accurate, and more consistent when supported by AI and by custom AI assistants and agents. We are now moving into agentic AI, which will take this even further.

Can you share one concrete example of how AI has transformed everyday legal work at Signify?

A very strong example for in house legal teams is the use of AI to support other business functions and remove unnecessary back and forth. These are low risk tasks that consume a lot of legal time without adding proportional value.

Two years ago, we created an AI agent that reviews marketing claims against our legal guidelines. The agent instantly assesses marketing claims and press releases and can even be customized to propose a compliant alternative. This allows the business to get immediate feedback instead of waiting for legal review.

The impact has been significant. The business loves this agent because it speeds up their processes, and for legal it creates a much smoother workflow. We can focus on higher risk and more strategic matters, while AI handles repetitive and low risk reviews under our supervision.

What are the essential skills every legal professional should develop today, and how do you foster that culture internally?

If I were hiring a new legal professional today, the use of AI in daily work would be mandatory. Just as opening a Word document to review a contract is standard, opening an AI tool should be equally standard.

The key skill is being open and creative in working with AI. Lawyers should actively create and demand their own AI solutions, rather than seeing AI primarily as a risk. AI should be used with proper supervision, but it should be a working partner. Lawyers should use it to analyze their work, challenge their reasoning, support drafting, and avoid unnecessary manual tasks. Delegating and double checking work with AI should be normal practice.

The mindset I value most is seeing AI as a personal assistant that works with you, as a junior lawyer or intern.

With AI reshaping the legal landscape, what ethical questions keep you up at night and how should law leaders balance innovation with responsibility?

My biggest concern at the moment is over reliance on automation. We still need to have the human in the loop always. While AI can significantly enhance legal work, it is critical that humans remain in the loop. Legal judgment, accountability, and responsibility cannot be delegated entirely to machines.

At this stage, constant monitoring of AI outputs is essential. Law leaders must ensure that AI is used as decision support, not decision replacement.

Looking ahead five to ten years, how do you envision AI changing legal departments globally?

As routine and repetitive tasks become increasingly automated, lawyers will be able to focus on the areas where legal judgment truly adds value. This includes complex reasoning, contextual interpretation, ethical decision making, and strategic advice. Technology will protect and amplify these human capabilities rather than dilute them, provided it is used with intent and discipline.

AI will also act as a force multiplier for legal expertise. By removing low impact work, one lawyer will be able to support more stakeholders, provide more consistent guidance, and engage earlier in decision making processes. This will shift the role of lawyers from reactive problem solvers to proactive contributors who help shape decisions before risks materialize.

I also see a shift in the role of lawyers from primarily executing tasks to orchestrating solutions. Lawyers will spend less time producing legal output and more time designing processes, setting guardrails, supervising AI systems.

What advice would you give someone aspiring to blend law, tech, and innovation?

I think this is the perfect moment for the intersection of law, technology, and innovation. My advice is to build strong legal expertise while also investing in basic technological understanding. You do not need deep technical skills, but you should be comfortable discussing how digital tools work, what their limitations are, and what risks they introduce. This makes collaboration with technical and business teams much more effective.

Be willing to learn by doing. Small experiments, even informal ones, are often more valuable than theoretical knowledge. Over time, this hands on experience builds confidence and credibility at the intersection of law and technology.

Build relationships with technologists, data scientists, and product teams, and be genuinely curious about how they think. Most importantly, approach innovation with humility and responsibility. The goal is not to replace legal thinking with technology, but to use technology to elevate the impact of legal professionals.