Every week, we ask the IHC community a single question. This week’s question — “Are you using AI tools in your legal department?” — drew our highest response rate ever. Here’s what 827 verified in-house counsel told us.

The results: 14% said yes with a formal policy in place. 38% said yes but no formal policy yet. 29% said not officially but people are using it anyway. 12% said no and have actively restricted it. 7% said not sure or haven’t addressed it yet. The headline number: 67% of in-house counsel say AI is being used at their company, but only 14% have a formal policy governing it.

The gap between adoption and governance is massive. Nearly a third of respondents chose “not officially, but people are using it anyway.” This tracks with what we’ve been hearing at mixers — the biggest risk isn’t the AI itself, it’s that legal doesn’t know how it’s being used. Only 12% have actively restricted AI. Outright bans are rare. Most legal teams are either embracing it or just haven’t gotten around to dealing with it.

One respondent captured the mood perfectly: “I wrote our AI policy on a flight from Denver to Chicago. One page. Took 90 minutes. The hardest part wasn’t drafting it — it was convincing myself it didn’t need to be 20 pages.”