At the beginning of 2025, we stood with an ambition to meaningfully integrate AI into the way we deliver work. Our teams support clients on complex contracting and commercial work — creating playbooks, reviewing and negotiating agreements, and driving consistency and quality across large volumes of legal decisions. This is skilled legal work, delivered by trained professionals where judgment, risk awareness, and precision matter.
The task was daunting. We had scattered curiosity from a handful of individuals, but we also had other team members who were hesitant, intimidated, and unsure of what AI meant for its day-to-day work.
We were, in truth, in the “lone nut” phase of the now-famous TED Talk How to Start a Movement. One person standing on a hill, dancing awkwardly, hoping someone else would join. And to their credit, we benefited from early internal champions. Our first followers emerged—visible, vocal, and brave. They didn’t just quietly use the tools; they championed them. They showed others how to follow. And from there, the seeds of a movement began to take root. Twelve months later, AI is part of how we deliver, how we think, how we learn, and how our clients expect us to show up. This is what the journey taught us.
1. Organization-wide training changed the curve
Early in the year, we realized that we needed to meet our people where they were. AI language—agentic workflows, prompting, abstraction—felt alien and intimidating. The early adopters raced ahead, but many around them felt left out of the conversation. So, we made a deliberate shift: instead of asking the organization to lift itself up to AI, we brought AI down to where the organization actually was. We made it simple. We made it accessible. And above all, we made it safe for people to try.
This realization led to one of the most significant internal investments in Factor’s recent history: we put every member of the organization through the same Sensemaker Academy training we offer to clients. It was an intentional decision to give everyone a baseline understanding of how the technology actually works. The impact was immediate. Curiosity replaced intimidation. Conversations started happening across teams. Teams began to experiment. And the organization shifted from isolated enthusiasm to collective participation.
2. Real client outcomes created the real tipping point
As we surfaced early successes across major client engagements, the internal narrative changed. The tools spoke for themselves. Turnaround times dropped. Quality improved. Consistency increased. And our Team Leads, once cautious observers, now starting to extol the virtues of what is possible.
3. Embedding AI into real workflows takes effort
We discovered something else along the way: layering technology into existing workflows is incredibly hard. It is slow, uncomfortable, and effortful because real transformation requires changing habits, processes, and mindsets. Anyone can pilot a tool in a controlled environment; the real challenge is embedding it into institutional behavior. But despite the friction, we have done exactly that. We now have technology we can stand behind, evidence we can take out to the market, and internal teams who understand how these tools enhance the work they already do.
4. Client expectations shifted faster than we expected
This year we have noticed that procurement teams have shifted their expectations. At the beginning of 2025 we had to justify using AI—explaining governance, addressing objections, and proving that the tools were safe and reliable. Now the conversation is entirely different. Clients increasingly assume AI will be a core part of our delivery. They want to understand the capability. They want to see what we do, how we do it, and where they can benefit next. There isn’t a week that goes by when I am not preparing for, or giving a client a walkthrough of the capability of FactorAI.
We have turned sceptics into believers and observers into advocates.
5. Visible leadership matters
Internally, the journey has taken us from isolated experimentation to genuine organizational change. Team Leads now believe AI can make their work easier, faster, and more consistent. We are beginning to self-serve. Teams are weaving the tools into BAU delivery. And perhaps most importantly, the organization has moved past fear and into participation. What once felt risky now feels normal. That is the hallmark of a true movement.
6. Consistency is our new North Star
Last year, my goal for 2025 was to answer a simple but foundational question:
“Have we got the right person doing the right piece of work from the right location using the right technology?”
It was a grounding goal—ensuring that we had the structural discipline needed to support the adoption to come.
But 2026 asks something different of us. The market expects us to use AI, and we have both the capability and the credibility to meet that expectation. Our challenge is no longer proving that AI works. Our challenge is consistency – and building a repeatable and sustainable model.
And so the goal for 2026 is a natural evolution of the one before it is:
“Doing things once, well and consistently.”
This is the year we industrialize our approach. We continue growing the movement, nurturing second followers and third followers and the many who will come after. We systematize, standardize, and scale.
Looking ahead to 2026
We started the year with a lone nut. We end it with a real movement—visible, public, confident, and increasingly unstoppable. But have so much more to achieve. And as we look toward 2026, we do so from a place of strength: stronger technology, stronger proof, stronger adoption, stronger client pull, and a stronger organization that now believes in what is possible. This is what transformation looks like—not sudden, not easy, but real. And now, we are ready for the next chapter.
Find out more about Sensemaker Academy here.
