ILTACON 2026: Many conversations. One bigger story. Are we ready?

ILTACON 2026 was big. Really big. More people. More vendors. More AI. More conversations about agents, platforms, workflows and what the future of legal technology might look like.

And while the sessions were debating AI strategy, the two AI heavyweights were having a very different conversation, with their wallets: who could make the biggest splash in Nashville? Judging by the conversations among attendees, they certainly succeeded in getting people talking. Whether that was the kind of attention they were hoping for is another question.

Somewhere between the shiny demos and the AI hype, though, I kept hearing a different conversation. And, frankly, I think it’s the more interesting one.

What happens when the technology is no longer the hardest part?

Because the conversation seems to be shifting. From “What can this technology do?” to “Are we actually ready to use it?” From buying technology to understanding the problem we are trying to solve. From implementation to adoption. From features to outcomes.

What stayed with me after ILTACON wasn’t a particular product. It was this shift in the conversation.

1. Organizational capability is becoming just as important as AI capability.
   Having access to the technology doesn’t mean an organization is ready to use it. And giving people another tool doesn’t magically give them the time, skills, confidence or capacity to change how they work.Technology capability matters. But increasingly, so does the organizational capability to make that technology work.

2. The interesting question is no longer “Which tool should we buy?” but “What are we actually willing to change?”
   Start with the problem. Understand the workflow. Involve the people doing the work. Define what to change and what success looks like. Then decide what technology might help.Radical thought, I know.But perhaps this is where the conversation is maturing. The technology itself is becoming less of the differentiator. The ability to change how work gets done may be.

3. Change management is moving closer to the center of the conversation.
   Not as the soft side of implementation. Not as a training plan that gets pulled out two weeks before go-live. But as the work of creating the conditions in which change can actually happen.That means understanding the impact on people, preparing the organization, creating ownership, making space for adoption and recognizing that implementation is not the same thing as change.

4. AI is exposing problems that were already there.
   Poor data. Fragmented processes. Unclear ownership. Weak governance. Siloed teams. Limited capacity. Communication gaps. AI didn’t create these problems. It just makes them much harder to hide.And perhaps that is one of the less comfortable opportunities AI brings with it. If we want to get real value from the technology, we may first have to fix some of the things we have been working around for years.

5. And perhaps most importantly: the industry is excited but starting to ask harder questions.
   What is the value? How do we measure it? Who owns it? Do people actually have the capacity to adopt it? And are we changing the way legal work gets done, or simply adding another layer of technology to the way we’ve always worked?
   That, for me, was one of the most interesting stories of ILTACON 2026. Maybe the next chapter of legal tech isn’t really about finding the next great tool. It’s about building organizations that are ready to make technology work.

Those five observations were the bigger story for me. But a few sessions in particular made that story feel much more tangible.

The Reinvention Advantage: Are we ready to rethink our roles?

One session that stayed with me for a very different reason was “The Reinvention Advantage: Staying Relevant, Resilient and Ready,” led by Priya Lele and Janine Moreno. It was a women-in-technology session, but the topic that caught my attention went well beyond that context: how do we stay relevant, keep growing and rethink our roles as technology changes the way we work?

While much of ILTACON was understandably focused on what AI can do, this session turned the question around. Not “What can the technology do to our work?” but “What can we do differently because the technology is changing our work?”. That distinction matters.

The session introduced a simple but powerful framework: Me. Machine. Mindset.

Me: What capabilities do I bring, and which ones do I need to build?

Machine: How can AI and technology augment what I do rather than simply add another tool to my toolbox?

Mindset:  Am I willing to rethink my role, my habits and perhaps even the way I define my own value?

What I particularly liked was that this wasn’t presented as another theoretical conversation about the future of work. Participants were asked to actively rethink their roles and turn that thinking into a personal action plan.

And there was another message that stayed with me: keep evolving. Keep growing. Don’t wait for someone else to define what comes next for you.

For me, that is where the conversation becomes bigger than technology. AI isn’t just changing tasks. It may change roles, responsibilities and professional identities. And that means adoption isn’t simply about teaching someone how to use a new tool. It is about helping people answer a much harder question: “If technology changes what I do, where do I create value now?”

That is a very different kind of readiness. We talk a lot about technology readiness. But perhaps we need to talk just as much about human readiness.

But what about the people doing the changing?

One thing I really appreciated about ILTACON 2026 was how intentional ILTA was about taking care of the people in the room. Mental health and wellness weren’t treated as an afterthought. Healthy food, space to recharge and a visible focus on wellbeing were woven into the conference experience.

There was also a session with Adam Wehler, Dawn Hudgins and Joy Heath Rush, “Beyond the Bar: Mental Health and Resilience for the People Behind Every Lawyer,” which brought another dimension into the conversation: psychology. How does our brain actually work? And how intentional can we be about building resilience?

What made this session particularly relevant was its focus on the people behind the legal professionals. There is already a substantial body of research into the mental health, wellbeing and resilience of lawyers and other legal professionals. But what about the people behind them: the legal technology, operations, innovation, project, change and other professionals who enable that work to happen? We know much less about them.

ILTA is now launching a survey to help change that (Mental Health & Resilience Survey). It is an important step toward understanding the experiences, pressures, wellbeing and resilience of the people who support the legal profession but whose own experience is often less visible.

The conversation felt particularly relevant in the age of AI. Our brains are incredibly powerful. But the more we ask AI to think, write, analyze and remember for us, the more we risk giving away some of that brain power. We shouldn’t outsource the very thing that makes us valuable.

AI can augment our thinking. It can challenge us, accelerate us and help us work differently. But we still need to use our brains, not just our tools. That, to me, is part of resilience too: staying mentally engaged, curious and intentional about how we think and work, even when technology makes it increasingly easy not to.

And then there were the moments beyond the sessions

Of course, ILTACON wasn’t only about the sessions. The two keynote speakers were excellent, and both brought perspectives that stayed with me for very different reasons.

Jim Abbott opened the conference with a powerful story about adversity and resilience. His story is remarkable: born without a right hand, he went on to become a Major League Baseball pitcher and even threw a no-hitter for the New York Yankees.

I know embarrassingly little about baseball, so I may not have been the most qualified person in the room to fully appreciate all the sporting references. But even I understood the message. Resilience isn’t about waiting for circumstances to become easier. It’s about finding a way forward with what you have.

And then there was Dr. Kevin Fong. I had heard Kevin speak before, so I already knew how good he is. But the timing of his keynote at ILTACON made it particularly memorable.

His keynote followed the 9/11 memorial that ILTA had incorporated into the morning program, almost 25 years after the attacks. The memorial was deeply emotional for many people in the room, with personal reflections from members of the legal technology community and a remembrance of those who lost their lives.

And then Kevin Fong took the stage. His work sits at the intersection of medicine, science, space exploration and extreme situations, and he has a remarkable ability to talk about uncertainty, pressure and human performance without making it feel abstract.

Coming straight after such an emotional moment gave his message an additional weight. It was a thoughtful combination of remembrance, reflection and perspective. And that also says something about ILTA as an organization. They are clearly very considerate about the experience they create for their community. It isn’t simply a conference where you sit through sessions, visit exhibitors and collect a lot of swag. There is genuine thought behind the program, the moments they create and the community they bring together.

And that is probably one of my final takeaways: ILTACON is worth experiencing. The scale is impressive, the community is welcoming, and there is a real openness to sharing experiences, ideas and lessons learned across organizations and across borders.

I came to ILTACON expecting to get a better sense of where we are with AI. I left thinking much more about people, resilience, organizational capability and the choices we make about how technology changes the way we work.

Maybe that is what I was really taking home from Nashville. The next challenge isn’t simply finding better technology. It’s building the capability, capacity and confidence to use it well.

So, are we ready? I think that may be the question we should be asking long before we buy the next tool.