Technical FAQs

Continuous innovation has allowed Accusoft to build sustained success over the course of three decades. Much of that innovation comes from talented developers creating novel solutions to everyday problems, many of which go on to become patented technologies that provide the company with an edge over competitors. 

Others, however, are the byproduct of looking at problems from a different perspective or using existing technologies in unique ways. Accusoft supports both approaches by hosting special “hackathon” events each year. These events encourage developers to spend time working on their own unique projects or try out ideas they think may have potential but have never been implemented.

For this year’s hackathon, I took a closer look at how our SmartZone SDK could be implemented as part of an automation solution within a .NET environment without creating an entire application from the ground up. What I discovered was that PowerShell modules offer a quick and easy way to deploy character recognition for limited, unique use cases.

.NET and PowerShell

One of the underestimated abilities of the .NET infrastructure is support loading and executing assemblies out of box from the command line using a shell module. Although there are many shell variants available, PowerShell comes preinstalled on most Windows machines and is the only tool required to make the scripts and keep them running. PowerShell also runs on Linux and macOS, which makes it a true cross-platform task automation solution for inventive developers who crave flexibility in their scripting tools. 

Incorporating the best features of other popular shells, PowerShell consists of a command-line shell, a scripting language, and a configuration management framework. One of the unique features of PowerShell, however, is that unlike most shells which can only accept and return text, it can do the same with .NET objects. This means PowerShell modules can be used to build, test, and deploy solutions as well as manage any technology as part of an extensible automation platform.

Implementing SmartZone Character Recognition

Accusoft’s SmartZone technology allows developers to incorporate advanced zonal character recognition to capture both machine-printed and hand-printed data from document fields. It also supports full page optical character recognition (OCR) and allows developers to set confidence values to determine when manual review of recognition results are necessary. 

Implementing those features into an application through a third-party integration is the best way to incorporate recognition capabilities, but there are some use cases where they might need to be used for general tasks outside of a conventional workflow. A number of Accusoft customers, for instance, had inquired about simple ways to use some of SmartZone’s features in their existing process automation software without having to spend weeks of development time integrating those capabilities on a larger scale.

Thanks to the versatility of PowerShell, there’s no reason to build such an application from scratch. SmartZone’s zonal recognition technology can easily be incorporated into any .NET environment with just a few snippets of code. PowerShell syntax itself is not very difficult to understand and for a quick start it should be enough to use a Windows Notepad application, but we recommend using your favorite integrated development environment (IDE) for a better experience.

Getting Started

First, you need to download SmartZoneV7.0DotNet-AnyCPU.zip from the Accusoft SmartZone download page and unpack it to any suitable directory. This bundle contains all required binaries to run SmartZone.

Create a Simple.ps1 file inside the unpacked directory and start typing your script:

using namespace System.Drawing
using namespace System.Reflection
using namespace Accusoft.SmartZoneOCRSdk

# Load assemblies.
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Drawing
$szPath = Resolve-Path ".\bin\netstandard2.0\Accusoft.SmartZoneOCR.Net.dll"
[Assembly]::LoadFrom($szPath)

# Create a SmartZone instance.
$szObj = [SmartZoneOCR]::new()
$szAssetsPath = Resolve-Path ".\bin\assets"
$szObj.OCRDataPath = $szAssetsPath.Path

# Licensing
# $szObj.Licensing.SetSolutionName("Contact Accusoft for getting the license.")
# $szObj.Licensing.SetSolutionKey(+1, 800, 875, 7009)
# $szObj.Licensing.SetOEMLicenseKey("https://www.accusoft.com/company/legal/licensing/");

# Load test image.
$bitmapPath = Resolve-Path ".\demos\images\OCR\MultiLine.bmp"
[Bitmap] $bitmap = [Image]::FromFile($bitmapPath.Path)

# Recognize the image and print the result.
$result = $szObj.Reader.AnalyzeField([Bitmap] $bitmap);
Write-Host $result.Text

# Free the resources.
$bitmap.Dispose();
$szObj.Dispose();

This simple code snippet allows you to use SmartZone together with PowerShell in task automation processes like recognizing screenshots, email attachments, and images downloaded by the web browser. It can also be deployed in other similar cases where the advantages of PowerShell modules and cmdlets can help to achieve results faster than writing an application from scratch.

Another Hackathon Success

Identifying a new way to deploy existing Accusoft solutions is one of the reasons why the hackathon event was first created. This script may not reinvent the wheel, but it will help developers save time and money in a lot of situations, which means fewer missed deadlines and faster time to market for software products. Developing unique approaches to existing problems can be difficult with deadlines and coding demands hanging over a developer’s head, so Accusoft’s hackathons are incredibly important for helping the company stay at the forefront of innovation. 

To learn more about how that innovation can help your team implement powerful new features into your applications, talk to one of our solutions experts today!

Although often considered a bit old fashioned, the insurance industry has made great strides in recent years to adapt to the changing needs of its customers. The latest generation of insurance customers expects faster service, better support, and more options from providers. Given these pressures, it’s no surprise that InsurTech developers have found ample opportunities to deliver solutions that help insurance firms better manage their workflows and create better customer experiences.

Despite the successes of this digital transformation, however, there are still a number of challenges that InsurTech developers face when building new applications. Investing heavily in creating powerful AI and big data tools might help those platforms stand out from the crowd, but they won’t find much success with firms if they don’t also provide the core functionality organizations need to service their customers. 

That’s why many InsurTech developers are turning to versatile SDK and API integrations to expand their feature sets without compromising their development timelines.

4 Major Challenges of InsurTech Applications

1. Security and Privacy

As the insurance industry continues to shift toward digital processes and platforms, it’s become more important than ever for InsurTech applications to keep sensitive data secure. While most organizations do invest in cybersecurity protections, they often don’t realize how their own practices could potentially pose a risk to customer information. This is especially true of insurers that rely on third-party programs for various tasks like document viewing and editing. Take, for instance, the case of Folksam Group, which inadvertently shared client data from as many as one million customers with Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Adobe in late 2020. 

2. File Management

Today’s insurers are receiving all kinds of documents, files, and images from their customers, which creates something of a document dilemma. A single auto accident claim, for instance, might have valuable information spread across multiple PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheet files, scanned images of hand-written forms, and image files. In order to process claims quickly and effectively, firms need InsurTech solutions that provide an all-in-one solution that can handle a broad array of file formats. Without these file management tools, insurers will be forced to use multiple programs to meet their needs, which creates inefficient dependencies and increases security risks.

3. Data Collection

Insurance companies gather quite a bit of information from form applications, both in physical and digital formats. Unfortunately, transferring that information from a form document into an InsurTech system is often a laborious manual process. Not only is manual data collection time consuming, it also increases the likelihood of human error. Even when firms do implement an InsurTech solution with forms processing capabilities, however, they often lack the capability to read certain types of form fields, especially those completed by hand. The ability to adapt to new form templates is also critical for organizations that want to invest in automation. 

4. Remote Collaboration

The COVID-19 pandemic may have forced insurance offices to rapidly embrace a remote work strategy, but many firms had already been investing in some form of hybrid work model for years. Nationwide was able to transition 98 percent of its workforce to remote status precisely because the company already had the technology solutions in place to allow insurance agents to work from home. Without some way of facilitating remote collaboration directly through InsurTech applications, organizations end up relying on email, which poses serious security concerns. Furthermore, with multiple copies of a document being distributed and downloaded, it quickly becomes difficult to know which version incorporates the most up-to-date changes.

SDK and API InsurTech Solutions

Building new functionality into an application always involves a tradeoff. When developers choose to code something from scratch, that means pulling team members away from another project or extending the product’s release timeline. In a fast-moving industry where InsurTech developers are racing competitors to be the first to market, it doesn’t make sense to design and build every aspect of an application in-house. 

Rather than pulling valuable development resources away from their innovative InsurTech features, developers can solve common insurance challenges much faster with SDK toolkits and API integrations. 

Secure File Viewing

The easiest way for InsurTech solutions to keep documents secure is to integrate HTML5 viewing capabilities directly into the application. Rather than being forced to download or open a file for viewing in a third-party application, employees can view multiple document formats natively. This is critical because it means no data will be shared with third-party programs.  Since the files remain safely within the secure InsurTech environment, firms can also control the level of access to any document, which prevents unauthorized individuals from downloading or viewing the contents. Thanks to API-based integrations like Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Viewer, InsurTech developers can help their applications safely view more than 100 unique file types without any third-party dependencies.

Data Capture

By integrating forms processing capabilities into their applications, InsurTech developers can provide their clients with powerful tools that allow them to gather essential data quickly and accurately. As the essential connective tissue between customers and insurance databases, form field recognition integrations use OCR technology to intelligently identify form data and extract it for processing. They can also be set up to identify a wide range of insurance forms to quickly identify and scan documents to streamline processing workflows. Accusoft’s FormSuite for Structured Forms even goes a step further by incorporating powerful image cleanup functionality to ensure that data will be extracted as accurately as possible.

File Conversion

In order to meet the file management challenges of today’s insurance providers, InsurTech developers need document and image processing integrations that can read and write multiple file formats. Information spread across multiple documents, emails, or even texts can be processed using OCR technology, and then consolidated and converted into a variety of formats for easy reference and collaboration. Rather than juggling several files with different dependencies, an SDK integration like Accusoft’s ImageGear can easily output processed files in PDF, RTF, XML, or DOCX format for viewing and editing within a single application.

Editing and Annotation

Providing secure document viewing capabilities solves only one half of the insurance collaboration challenge. InsurTech applications also need to provide both internal and external stakeholders with the ability to edit and markup documents throughout the application and claims process. Content processing integrations can allow authorized users to make changes to documents completely within their InsurTech solution and review markups and comments from other collaborators. 

Since all editing occurs within the application itself, there’s no need to worry about anyone downloading a document to make changes locally and creating confusion over which version is the most up-to-date. Redactions may also be necessary to hide private or confidential information from unauthorized viewers. As an added benefit, PrizmDoc Viewer’s editing features allow users to make a variety of markups and redactions while preserving the integrity of the original file.

Accelerate Your InsurTech Application Development with Accusoft

Accusoft’s collection of powerful SDK toolkits and API integrations provide innovative InsurTech developers with the resources they need to solve core insurance industry challenges. By implementing proven functionality into their applications, project managers can streamline the development process and dedicate more resources to the innovative features that will set their platform apart from the competition.

Whether you’re looking to incorporate versatile document viewing and editing or need a more accurate forms processing solution, Accusoft’s family of InsurTech SDKs and APIs can help your development team get to market faster. Learn more about what our products can do for your application in our InsurTech fact sheet.

Accusoft’s FormSuite for Structured Forms is a powerful SDK that allows you to integrate character recognition, form identification, document cleanup, and data capture capabilities into your software applications. You can set up unique form templates based on your processing needs and then design customized output architecture to extract data for delivery to a database or other downstream applications, helping you get to production faster or bring a new level of functionality to your legacy systems.

Setting all of that functionality up, however, can be a daunting task, especially if you’re working with a wide variety of form types. That’s why our FormSuite enablement services team is available to help you implement the features you need to ensure lasting results. Whether you’re facing bandwidth constraints or lack the resources to build expertise quickly, our FormSuite experts bridge the gap to make your project a success. Our enablement services team takes a five step approach to every engagement.

The Accusoft Approach to Enablement Services

Step 1: Thorough Architecture Review

We start by conducting a top to bottom analysis of your production or operational environment. Our review not only evaluates your system architecture and data workflow, but also breaks down the details of your potential use cases and existing work samples. 

Step 2: Identifying the Right Fit

Next, we determine the best FormSuite options based on your unique requirements and build you a custom enablement plan that will equip you with the instruction and assistance you need for a successful implementation.

Step 3: Training Your Team

Armed with information about your application’s specific requirements, we develop a customized training program to give your team a solid foundation for future development and ongoing maintenance. From guidance on form template creation and image enhancement to working with the forms API, we provide you with targeted guidance designed to help you solve potential challenges unique to your application environment.

Step 4: Implementation Support

Once the training is complete, you’ll have the foundational knowledge required to build the forms processing workflows your application requires. Our FormSuite experts remain on call to answer your questions so you can achieve your integration faster and ensure that you’re processing forms accurately.

Step 5: Preparing for Long-Term Success

Our enablement services prepare you to manage your implementation over the long term. We not only show you how to maintain the current environment, but also identify potential opportunities to deploy new features as your application scales in the future.

Keep the Partnership Going

Following your integration, we also provide ongoing support options to our customers whether or not they’ve utilized our enablement services. You get free Upgrade Support for 90 days after initial purchase, which includes email support and product upgrades. After that period, you can extend Upgrade Support, or elect to transition to our Standard Support or Priority Support annual plans.

To learn more about FormSuite for Structured Forms enablement services, talk to one of our solutions engineers. We’re ready to help you get your integration started!

TAMPA, Fla. – On September 22, 2020, Accusoft announced its latest SDK, ImageGear PDF. This integration enables developers to add a variety of PDF functionalities into an application.

“We are proud to add ImageGear PDF as the latest addition to our product portfolio,” says Jack Berlin, CEO of Accusoft. “We recognized a need in the market for a more robust PDF solution that developers could use to enhance their products. Using our proprietary technology, I knew we could bridge that gap.”

ImageGear PDF gives end-users the ability to merge multiple PDFs, split a PDF into multiple PDFs, rearrange pages within a PDF, add pages or remove pages in a PDF, and more. The SDK adds programmatic annotation capabilities as well as compression, signature, comparison, and data capture.

“ImageGear PDF is a great tool for developers looking to enhance their application,” says Mark Hansen, Sr. Product Manager of SDKs. “Accusoft has a variety of different PDF solutions, but we wanted to add a more robust SDK that solves PDF pain points more efficiently.”

ImageGear PDF is available with an optical character recognition (OCR) add-on feature, which programmers can use to search for specific characters within a document, highlight different sections, and markup the output for easier viewing and collaboration. To learn more about ImageGear PDF, please visit our website at accusoft.com/products/imagegear-collection/imagegear-pdf/.

About Accusoft:

Founded in 1991, Accusoft is a software development company specializing in content processing, conversion, and automation solutions. From out-of-the-box and configurable applications to APIs built for developers, Accusoft software enables users to solve their most complex workflow challenges and gain insights from content in any format, on any device. Backed by 40 patents, the company’s flagship products, including OnTask, PrizmDoc™ Viewer, and ImageGear, are designed to improve productivity, provide actionable data, and deliver results that matter. The Accusoft team is dedicated to continuous innovation through customer-centric product development, new version release, and a passion for understanding industry trends that drive consumer demand. Visit us at www.accusoft.com.

Should you automate your business forms? That’s a good question. And, the answer depends on how often you use forms within your business or when interacting with your customers.

If you’re operating with a remote workforce during this pandemic, you’ve likely found a way around any paper forms you were using. Some are using email, others are just getting by with snail mail. It’s not an efficient situation. Even after things return to normal, paper forms will still be inefficient, expensive, wasteful, harder to secure, and easier to lose track of. And it’s not just paper forms that are a problem. Even electronic forms can get tied up in someone’s email inbox without automation. 

Form automation can help streamline document processing for any small or medium-sized business that use forms as a part of its operations. With the addition of automation software, you can track electronic forms and move them automatically through a workflow that you create.This relatively simple upgrade can help alleviate security and productivity issues, saving your company valuable time and money.

How SMBs Benefit from Form Automation

Form automation helps small to medium-sized businesses transform tedious paper-based tasks and forms into efficient digital processes. There are many advantages to adding automation, such as: streamlining form-based processes like employee applications, creating new forms to replace paper-based ones, and simplifying the collection of electronic signatures. Other benefits include:

1. Streamlining Processes: Form automation software allows you to create workflows that streamline your document management processes. Automated forms can be easily updated without printing or scanning, and documents can be tracked with workflow software. You can set up your system to auto-populate forms, format for digital signatures, and create a workflow that moves a document on to the next person in line.  

The Wyanoke Group, a medical publishing company specializing in education, used form automation to standardize their processes and streamline operations. They used the Docubee form automation solution to manage employee review forms, identify tasks for each participant, administer individual permissions, and track the progress of each workflow. They also use Docubee’s reporting features to track each employee review’s progress throughout the chain of command. 

2. Improving Collaboration: Creating mobile responsive and dynamic fillable forms also makes it easier for a remote workforce to collaborate. Forms can be digitally routed, easily and instantly, from one location to another. Cloud-based electronic forms can be accessed anywhere with an internet connection. This makes it easier for long-distance customers to submit forms and for staff members to circulate forms between multiple office locations. 

3. Saving Time: If you process a large number of forms in your business, automation can help you manage them more efficiently. Forms with auto-fill features can also save time for the person filling out the form, while also eliminating manual entry errors and omissions. When you need to find a form later on, searching a digital database is faster than digging through a filing cabinet for a paper version. 

After COVID-19 quarantine restrictions were lifted, the West Florida Flames, a non-profit soccer organization, realized a need for document automation. With 2,500 active members waiting to return to the game, they needed a way to quickly process the required health waivers. Working with Docubee, the Flames were able to get a form automation process up and running in less than 24 hours. Digital waivers were created and sent to members, making it possible for the organization to collect approximately 1,000 waivers in three to four days. 

4. Saving Money: In the United States, companies spend over $120 billion on printed forms each year. An automated form is less expensive to produce because you’re saving the money you would’ve spent on supplies like paper and ink. Digital forms are also easier to locate, which reduces the frustration and expense of recreating the same forms over again. 

5. Tracking Information: Whether you’re circulating a form within your office or sending paperwork out to customers to complete, automation can allow you to easily track a form’s progress, issue reminders when a task is awaiting completion, and move the form along as steps are completed.

Automation also makes it possible for you to:

• Identify where your forms are getting stuck
• Add personalized email messages and alerts throughout the process
• Reassign, resend, and generate custom links to provide task completion reminders

6. Securing Sensitive Data: Standardized forms reduce room for error and legal risks. With automation, you can create forms that allow you to capture legally certified and secure digital signatures. With all of your forms in one workflow, you won’t have to worry about outdated, incorrect versions. 

However, not all form automation solutions are created equal, so look for solutions that are SOC2 compliant (and also HIPAA compliant, if you’re working in healthcare). For example, Docubee digital signatures are legally binding under the ESIGN Act and include a certificate for a complete electronic audit trail, meaning your data is safe and secure, whether it’s a patient consent form, an internal expense report, or a new sales contract.

7. Reducing Waste: Physical copies of forms waste paper, ink, postage, and more. A recent study found that the average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year, with as much as 70 percent of that paper ending up in the trash. Automated form processing can save a significant amount of paper over time, helping both your business and the planet. 

By helping your business to go paperless, form automation makes it possible for you to:

• • Eliminate printing and scanning
  • Speed up routing and approvals 
  • Reduce paper records, phone calls, and emails
  • Simplify form completion for clients, employees, and new hires

Ready to try form automation for yourself?

Implementing a form automation solution like Docubee makes it easier for your small and medium-sized businesses to collect information from your customers and employees. With its intuitive and mobile-responsive interface, Docubee makes it possible to digitize your forms in seconds and create, route, review, and approve your forms all in one place. 

If you’d like to learn more about the benefits that form automation can bring to your SMB, please join us for a group demo, watch one of our many on-demand videos, or schedule a custom demo whenever you’re ready.

The EU has taken this priority a step further than just suggesting companies and organizations increase data protection – since 2018, they’ve mandated and enforced specific requirements through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Given the broad parameters covered under GDPR compliance, ensuring the standards are met can become a time-consuming, stressful and ongoing issue if not resourced properly.  The parameters go beyond the protection of personal data and go as far as requirements, to prove security measures are set in place.  

Who Needs to Maintain GDPR Compliance?

While often only associated within the European Union, the requirements and legislation of the GDPR extend as far as all “entities who are offering goods or services to anyone residing in the EU (even if those services are provided free of cost).  Any global business either has to become compliant for all of its users/customers or be able to accurately identify EU residents and enable compliant systems to handle only that subset of the customer base.”

GDPR requires companies to know the following as related to personal data:

• What personal data is being shared 
• Where it is being shared 
• How it can be deleted at a moment’s notice if necessary

The GDPR also highly encourages that an organization designates an employee to be the point of contact and in control of the data security processes and systems to maintain compliance.  A first step to having an effective process in place is choosing the right tools with security features to protect data being shared within the company.

Managing Risk through Secure Document Viewing

As risk management becomes an essential part of strategic planning, the importance of IT security and data encryption skyrockets to the top of priorities for most companies. GDPR suggests encryption as a means to manage risk in file sharing but does not outline explicit instruction.  With PrizmDoc™ Viewer, companies gain added data security, aligned with GDPR compliance, in document viewing and sharing without heavy client-side installations or downloads. 

PrizmDoc™ Viewer is created with Multi-Level Data Protection including:

• 256-bit AES encryption 
  • (Advanced Encryption Standard) is an international standard that ensures data is encrypted/decrypted following this approved standard. It ensures high security and is adopted by the U.S. government and other intelligence organizations across the world.
• Configurable user permissions add a strong measure of privacy and protection to document content.

A Simple Path to Secure Document Sharing

Remote work or not – collaborating on a project today means sharing documents among many colleagues to finalize a document, project, or presentation. To do that with security in mind, organizations are cobbling together tech stacks to meet their productivity needs along the way, and several different file types can come across their desks in a single day.  

PrizmDoc™ Viewer integrates into your current application to render and display a multitude of file types with high fidelity and speed.  The ease of use features include:

• Flexible use across many platforms
• A self-hosted version that resides on any organization’s servers
• Empowers developers to provide their users with responsive file viewing
• Search and redaction can be easily turned on/off

PrizmDoc Viewer is also designed to run on all devices with a zero-footprint viewer that makes it easy for employees to work where and how they wish. The white label services give an organization the flexibility to brand and customize while gaining peace of mind in data security.

Open and View an Image Securely the First Time

While documents have a range of formats from Word, PDF, spreadsheets, and more – images are often more of a culprit when it comes to difficulty viewing, let alone being able to download, edit, markup, or save information as a separate file. Workers find themselves quickly downloading a media player just to open the image.  Having multiple solutions in place is not only confusing, but it also contributes to inefficiency and human error which means added risk for images to remain secure. 

As photographs can constitute personal data under the GDPR, this means organizations must be able to quickly and easily remove all images where the individual can be identified.  

With ImageGear, an organization is able to add powerful image processing capabilities that enhance secure collaboration such as:

• PDF manipulation that includes managing access with digital signatures for added security levels
• The image processing library offers developers a set of methods for modifying an image including to resize, crop, merge, rotate, and flip.
• An option to add OCR for document search and data capture support

Getting Started 

To quickly gain peace of mind with secure collaboration, contact us today. 

Of the many eDiscovery trends we’re seeing in the Legal Tech world, one stands out as particularly crucial. The eDiscovery services market is exploding. The market is estimated to grow 8.7% annually, reaching more than $17B by 2027. 

The rapid growth of eDiscovery presents exciting opportunities for the Legal Tech world. However, for independent software vendors (ISVs) to capitalize on those opportunities, they must also stay vigilant about associated concerns such as the use of AI, data privacy, and effective document management.

Amidst the remarkable expansion of eDiscovery services, a host of trends have emerged that hold significant relevance for ISVs. Below, we outline key eDiscovery trends and offer tangible ways to navigate the landscape successfully.

Three eDiscovery Trends You Need to Know

#1: A Cautious Embrace of AI is Critical

One of the most prevalent eDiscovery trends is the need for cautious use of AI. It’s no secret that AI, or Legal AI, generative AI tools trained on legal processes, is revolutionizing eDiscovery. Law firms are already reaping the benefits, as 70% of large firms agree that generative AI adds value.

Legal AI makes teams more productive by automating rote tasks such as document review, memo drafting, and initial contract creation. For example, a recent study found that AI-powered due diligence document review can cut review time by up to 70% compared to traditional methods. 

What does this data tell us? That lawyers will be turning to Legal Tech ISV professionals to help them better use, scale, and mitigate the risks of AI.

As the eDiscovery market grows, more sophisticated use cases for Legal AI will be developed. For instance, a Legal AI tool could generate textual content, such as policies or communications, based on input examples. Additionally, a tool could assign a tag to a given input and help professionals create a searchable database of documents to streamline due diligence.

In other words, the possibilities of Legal AI are endless. However, generative AI tools, especially when used in highly regulated fields, must be implemented with caution. That’s where ISVs can bring unique value.

Risks of Legal AI that ISVs can Help Mitigate

• Tools that are available publicly have been trained on vast amounts of historical data, which could result in outputs that are outdated, biased, or irrelevant to your clients’ needs.
• The misuse of AI is common within and outside of organizations, which could result in “deep fake” images and videos, along with generated data that are hard to verify.
• Inputs that include personally identifiable information (PII) can be accidentally exposed to other users of the tool. That’s where Accusoft’s PII detection and redaction feature in PrizmDoc can be helpful.

These are just a few risks that accompany all of the benefits Legal AI tools offer. It’s critical to spend plenty of time experimenting with various tools to see which ones pose the least amount of risk and work best for your application. Part of a cautious embrace of AI also includes forming a team to research, test, and launch tools safely. That’s why 38% of American Law 200 firms are expected to hire more technologists to support generative AI initiatives.

Action Items: How to embrace eDiscovery AI tools cautiously in your application

• Offer AI readiness assessments or audits to help law firm clients evaluate their current readiness, infrastructure, and data readiness for AI implementation.
• Facilitate knowledge-sharing among your clients by organizing learning sessions. Given that 90% of law firms reported that they expect their investment in generative AI to rise in the next five years, it’s clear that legal teams are using AI successfully. Consider arranging sessions where firms that have successfully implemented AI can share best practices with less experienced organizations. 
• Explore partnering with a trusted eDiscovery document processing vendor such as Accusoft to integrate carefully vetted AI tools into your application. 

#2 Data Privacy Restrictions Must be Top of Mind

Any list of 2024 eDiscovery trends must include a concern about data privacy. This year and beyond, restrictions on data privacy and protecting PII will become more rigid. Awareness of protecting client data has grown globally. Additionally, excitement about AI can inadvertently overshadow the data privacy concerns that come with using tools that are publicly available.

Increased data privacy restrictions within firms will look like stricter data retention policies and increased use of software designed to help teams identify and redact PII. Firms will need to conduct thorough research on the data privacy policies of their partners, as well as the data privacy laws of the geographic areas in which they conduct business.

Action items: How to keep data privacy top of mind in your application:

• Strengthen your software’s data security by implementing robust encryption protocols and security measures. Provide options for end-to-end encryption, secure file sharing, and secure document storage to safeguard PII and maintain client confidentiality.
• Provide tools for compliance auditing, monitoring, and reporting to assist legal teams in demonstrating regulatory compliance to clients and regulatory authorities. Features such as access logs, audit trails, and user activity monitoring ensure accountability and transparency in data handling practices.
• Ensure continuous improvement and responsiveness within your applications to evolving client needs and how PII could be exposed or inadvertently changed. Establish regular feedback loops with clients to gather insights, identify pain points, and prioritize feature enhancements. 
• Review your organization’s data privacy policy. How does your software protect client data, PII, and more? Keep your clients updated on your policy so that they know data privacy is a top priority for you. 

#3 Better Management of Collaborative Platforms is Needed

Another one of the most important eDiscovery trends of 2024 is the need for better management of collaborative platforms. The adoption of collaborative platforms, such as Slack, WhatsApp, MS Teams, and others, has surged due to the shift to remote work.

The use of collaborative applications offers advantages and poses challenges. For example, they enable legal teams to capture valuable information from communications across many platforms that strengthen court cases. However, they also create extremely large volumes of legal documents and the potential of large amounts of duplicate content that teams then have to review.

Why is the concern about collaborative platforms so great? Because the number and use of these platforms is only growing. From now until 2032, the collaboration software market is projected to grow 12% annually. 

This has had profound effects on legal firms performing eDiscovery, most of whom still depend on tools and review processes designed for standard digital documents (such as .doc, .xlxs, .ppt, etc), paper documents, and email. The process of collecting, viewing, searching, redacting, and collaborating across traditional documents and emails has pivoted, and firms are responsible for including the digitized content from these collaborative working social platforms in their eDiscovery.

Action items: How to help law firms better access to files created in document collaboration tools

• Embed advanced search and filtering capabilities into your Legal Tech software that are specifically tailored to collaborative platform communications. This includes the ability to search for keywords, filter by date range or user, and apply metadata tags to organize and categorize communications effectively. These features enable lawyers to quickly locate relevant information during eDiscovery proceedings.
• Create tools in your application that supports the collecting, viewing, searching, redacting, and collaborating across traditional documents and emails, and also the digitized content from these collaborative working social platforms.
• Consider integrating PrizmDoc into your solution to seamlessly search, identify, and redact information directly within your application, ensuring top-notch document security.

Solutions Built to Help You Capitalize on eDiscovery Trends

We’ve only begun to see how the explosion of the eDiscovery services market poses opportunities and potential downfalls to the Legal Tech world. With the right safeguards in place, ISVs can capitalize on these opportunities to enhance their services, maintain competitiveness, and above all, foster client trust.

Wondering how can Accusoft support your team in keeping up with the eDiscovery trends of 2024? Read our Legal Tech Fact Sheet.