In May, 9Sail’s Director of Client Success Jordanna Kalkhof sat down with Jessica Aries, founder of By Aries, to cut through the hype around AI and focus on what actually drives value in legal marketing and business development. Instead of treating AI as a shiny new toy, or reducing its capabilities to email rewriting, they explored how to turn it into a true “digital intern” that supports real workflows—while still honoring strict data privacy and confidentiality requirements. Read on to hear how they distinguish access from real adoption, practical use cases for legal marketers, specific workflows Jessica is running today, and concrete steps you can take to start small without getting overwhelmed.

Key Takeaways:

1. Having an AI license is not the same as using AI. Most teams are at the “I rewrote an email once” stage—not true adoption. Real adoption means finding workflows where AI becomes an extension of how you actually work.
2. Data privacy concerns are legitimate, but they shouldn’t paralyze you. Understanding your tool’s configuration, turning off training data consent, and knowing where your firm falls on the risk spectrum lets you move forward responsibly.
3. Treat AI like a brilliant new intern. The better the context, examples, and direction you give it, the better the output you’ll get. If you would explain it to a new hire, document it for your AI tool.
4. Map your workflow before plugging AI in. Defining the problem and documenting each step—with the right people in the room—is the foundation of any AI workflow that actually works.
   
5. Scheduled prompts, projects, and AI agents are where the real time savings live. The firms seeing the biggest return aren’t just prompting ad hoc, they’re building repeatable, automated workflows that run in the background while they do other work.

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