Q&A – The End of “Agentic Theatre”: How Law Firms Can Move Beyond the AI Pilot (Salesforce President & CLO Sabastian Niles)

Is the legal industry at the precipice of the “innovator’s dilemma”? Coined by Clayton Christensen in his book of the same name, the Innovators Dilemma occurs when companies focus only on profitable customers and prioritize existing products rather than paying attention to the innovation that is going on around them.

As AI-driven solutions disrupt legal work, even the best-run law firms face major threats to their business model, and corporate legal departments want answers to tough questions about billing structures and output. 

In a recent episode of Technically Legal, Percipient Founder Chad Main spoke with Sabastian Niles, President and Chief Legal Officer of Salesforce about his recent open letter to the legal community, titled: “How Law Firms Can Lead the Agentic AI Era — And What Clients Now Expect.” In the letter, Niles argues that dabbling in AI pilot initiatives without actual integration into legal workflows is over. The curtain is closing on so-called “AI theater.” 

As law firms struggle to bridge the gap between legacy billing models and AI-driven efficiency, in-house departments like Salesforce are increasingly leading the charge on legal transformation. Below is a Q&A from Chad and Sabastian’s conversation (edited for length and clarity).

The End of the AI Pilot

CM: You said that “the era of the AI pilot is over.” We’re building our own AI tools here at my company, and things are moving so fast, so we have to change fast too. Could you expand on what you mean about the end of the AI pilot?

SN: Some of it is a mindset, right? And an approach. It’s viewing these items not as just technology challenges or data challenges — though that obviously underpins a number of the opportunities here — but recognizing it’s a relationship challenge for law firms. It is, I think, going to be one of the defining leadership challenges and opportunities for firms of all sizes.

So, continue to experiment, in the sense of “let’s test,” but not view it as something adjacent, or “I’ll do one or two pilots.” It’s sort of agentic AI theater, right? Tell a set of clients, “we’re doing this,” but not really embracing it. 

What does it mean, at the leadership of the firm, to say: “This is serious and real and we’re going to reimagine our processes. What’s our client service delivery model? How do we calibrate risk and the opportunity around this?” 

That’s a more core part of what’s the unified intelligence they’re bringing forth as one of their key service offerings.

Reimagining the Client Relationship 

CM: What do you view as the old-school relationship versus what you perceive as being a very positive, productive, new-school relationship that comes with this change?

SN: What is the relationship that the law firms and professional service advisory firms wish to have with their clients? And what’s the relationship clients wish to have with their firms? And when you think of what the opportunities are, some of it is here already. You kind of see where the road map is going around AI agents, technology, and data. 

Are the firms willing to figure out how to bring their institutional intelligence to bear for the benefit of their clients? What does it mean to have the full force and power of a firm across all their different practice groups? All the learning, the tribal knowledge, the tacit knowledge, but also the best of what they’re doing. 

How are they bringing forth to clients a fresh view of what’s their system of engagement within the firm and then with clients? What’s their system of agency? 

Where are they going to have their partners, their counsel, their associates be augmented by AI and agents for the client’s benefit? How does the system of work evolve? And then what’s that core system of context? 

From the client side, how are we getting better outcomes, deeper insights, superior service and offerings? How does the firm share savings, cost efficiencies, new updated business models?

The Opportunity of Data-Driven Collaboration 

CM: So they should use AI to talk within the firm and capture that information and that expertise. Is that what you’re alluding to there?

SN: What I’ve heard from quite a few law firms is, “this is an opportunity.” This is a growth lever for these firms in an increasingly competitive environment. 

Not only from other law firms, but in certain places, other professional service advisory firms that have taken a look at: “What is the work that legal firms are doing? What do people need?” As you unpack the steps, non-law firms are able to step right in, and you have alternative service providers.

To your point, how do you appropriately cut across the silos? Everyone is grappling with this. That’s why, one of the elements is, when you have a unified technology platform, how do you enable structured data, or unstructured data, all those silos in a sense continue to exist, but how do you have them not be impediments? 

And to your point, this becomes a growth opportunity for the firms. Because when they do it right, they will have more of, essentially, a 360 view of the client, of, increasingly, the industries that they’re seeking to serve. And then, I think, be more collaborative within the firms themselves, but also, in terms of, “what does it mean for law firms to collaborate with their clients?”

Mandating AI Literacy as a Core Skill

CM: What’s one thing that people in legal can do right now or tomorrow to take a step in the right direction to try to solve some of the issues that your open letter surfaced?

SN: The typical answer there is “use this particular tool.” I would actually say: establish executive accountability around these areas. And then, who’s going to be thinking about, “what are the trust guard rails around this?” Are they assessing the workflows, the actual work of the firm, where is current AI technology data used? Make some choices around, “how are we going to scale human judgment around these areas?” 

And how do you mandate AI literacy as a core professional skill? You know, I always tell my internal teams: “Look, technology, data, AI, agents, trusted agentics, this is now part of your craft.” And provide all the support. 

The Bottom Line

The shift Sabastian discusses underscores what has always been our mission at Percipient: providing in-house teams with attorney-led, tech-first workflows — from AI-augmented contract review and managed document review to providing frontier AI companies with accurate legal data and more — that deliver traditional legal judgment with high-quality outcomes. 

That approach ensures legal teams can scale capacity and efficiency while maintaining the accountability and effectiveness Sabastian identifies as necessary to remain competitive.