Harvey's first LLM for legal work is here

Aug 18, 2026 09:30 PM - 1 hour ago 1

Person successful a navy overgarment sits astatine a acheronian marble array successful a booth against a chromatic wall.

Harvey cofounder Gabe Pereyra. Harvey

Harvey built an $11 cardinal legal-software business connected apical of different companies' AI models. Now it's trying to beryllium it tin build 1 of its own.

On Tuesday, Harvey introduced Harvey Tenet, its first in-house, proprietary exemplary for ineligible work. Tenet is designed to thief Harvey's package return connected much of the tasks typically done by lawyers complete hours aliases days, astatine a little costs than the third-party models it relies on.

The move comes arsenic the companies down the biggest general-purpose models are circling the ineligible market. Anthropic has been chasing lawyers pinch plugins for archive reappraisal and drafting, while OpenAI has hired Ironclad founder Jason Boehmig to lead its push into legal. Google and Meta whitethorn not beryllium acold behind.

Their abrupt liking raises an uncomfortable mobility for Harvey. What happens erstwhile your supplier decides it wants your customers, too? And really agelong until 1 of them catches up to Harvey?

Building a bespoke exemplary could springiness Harvey much power complete some its costs and its fate.

Like galore startups, Harvey builds connected a smorgasbord of models from companies for illustration OpenAI and Anthropic. Every clip a lawyer uses 1 of those models done Harvey, the institution has to salary the exemplary supplier for the telephone — a costs that tin rack up accelerated arsenic usage grows.

A tin exemplary of its ain could let Harvey way much work done its ain engine, reducing the hefty fees it pays to usage extracurricular models. That could connection a way to amended margins without asking customers to salary more.

Cost was 1 motivation. Quality was another, said Gabe Pereyra, the erstwhile Google DeepMind interrogator who left to commencement Harvey pinch Winston Weinberg. He noted that Harvey already routes different tasks to different models based connected what they're bully at. He argues that Tenet will springiness customers different action successful that operation — 1 that's been shaped astir the activity they really attraction about.

To build it, Harvey first needed to create information that could thatch a exemplary really lawyers think. So the institution hired attorneys, connected unit and connected statement through companies for illustration Mercor and Snorkel, to dream up mock disputes and lawsuit files, past people the models connected really good they reasoned done them.

From there, Harvey utilized the worldly to train a type of Kimi K3, a low-cost, open-source exemplary from the Chinese startup Moonshot. Since its July release, the exemplary has whipped the tech world into a frenzy complete its powerfulness and price.

Tenet is portion of a broader rollout the institution is calling Harvey 2. Anique Drumright, Harvey's main merchandise officer, said it's besides adding a caller "Memory" characteristic that lets users prevention preferences astir really they work, truthful its agents tin transportation those instructions crossed tasks.

Harvey says it will soon merchandise investigation showing really Tenet stacks up against different models connected ineligible tasks. Its ain benchmark results merit immoderate skepticism, though. Model makers usage these tests to measurement wherever their systems autumn short, past train them to do better. That's useful, but complete clip it's a spot for illustration taking an exam aft helping constitute the reply key.

Tenet isn't unrecorded successful Harvey yet, and the institution won't opportunity erstwhile it will be. Pereyra wouldn't sanction immoderate of the rule firms that mightiness beryllium testing it. But he wasn't awkward astir his ambitions.

Eventually, he wants Tenet to go a building artifact for rule firms to train their ain models.

Every ineligible matter teaches a lawyer something. How to discuss a tricky clause. How a purchaser mightiness respond to a definite term. Much of that know-how stays trapped successful a lawyer's caput aliases buried successful aged documents. Pererya thinks a exemplary built wrong a firm's ain walls could thief unlock it, turning decades of activity into blueprints for agents designed to return up those tasks.

Harvey's stake is that rule firms won't beryllium building those models from scratch. Harvey would springiness them Tenet arsenic the starting point, past fto each patient train its ain type connected really its lawyers work.

That would push Harvey into a different benignant of business. It starts to look little for illustration a package supplier and much for illustration a Big Four master services firm, not conscionable trading technology, but helping clients configure it astir what makes their businesses different.

And that could create a neat irony for a institution agelong dismissed arsenic a "ChatGPT wrapper." If Harvey tin propulsion that off, the wrapper starts to look for illustration the astir valuable furniture successful the stack.

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Melia Robinson is simply a newsman astatine Business Insider covering really lawyers are changing the measurement they activity and measure successful the property of artificial intelligence — and astir the tech companies racing to service them.Melia first joined Business Insider successful 2013. She lives successful New York City.

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