“AI Will Not Replace Lawyers. Lawyers Who Use AI Will.”

As AI reshapes professional services, the legal industry is emerging as one of its most compelling applications. Swiss startup Silex is at the forefront of that transformation, helping legal professionals access high-quality legal knowledge in seconds rather than hours.

Founded by lawyers and already trusted by more than 800 organizations across Switzerland, Silex has quickly established itself as a leading player in legal AI. We spoke with co-founder Kyriaki about the future of legal work, where she believes the limits of AI still lie, what separates specialized legal AI from generic tools, and how Silex is building for a world in which AI becomes a standard part of every lawyer's workflow.

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Key Takeaways
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- “Many legal AI products look impressive until a lawyer actually tests them.”

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- “The real value isn’t in the model - it’s in the legal infrastructure behind it.”

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- “Law firms and legal departments are sitting on a gold mine of accumulated experience and data.”

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Kyriaki, you founded Silex after working as a lawyer yourself. Looking back at those years in practice, what do you think AI will fundamentally change about legal work - and what should remain human?

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Kyriaki: Law is one of the professions where AI will have the greatest impact because it is fundamentally a text-based profession. Every lawyer spends a considerable amount of time searching for information, analyzing documents, and finding answers that already exist somewhere in legislation, case law, or doctrine. AI can make those processes dramatically more efficient.

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At the same time, I don't believe AI will replace lawyers. When people face important legal issues, they want to speak to another human being. Human relationships, judgment, strategy, advocacy, and representation will remain essential.

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What I do think will change is access to legal services. As legal work becomes more efficient, services can become more accessible, allowing a much broader segment of society to benefit from legal expertise.

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Against that backdrop, what exactly is Silex building?

Kyriaki: At its core, Silex allows legal professionals to perform high-quality legal research in just a few seconds.

As a lawyer, there is always some form of legal research involved in a case. The answer exists somewhere - in legislation, case law, or doctrine - but finding it takes time. With Silex, you simply ask your question and receive what resembles a legal opinion within seconds.

Beyond research, users can compare contracts, anonymize documents, and use various legal agents. But our main focus is legal research because we are highly focused on quality.

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Many companies are building legal AI products. Why did you choose to build a legal intelligence infrastructure layer instead?

Kyriaki: What we see a lot today are wrappers around generic AI.

We took a very different approach. We built the entire database of legal sources ourselves and created an infrastructure optimized specifically for legal performance.

Our system does one thing exceptionally well: legal research. The optimizations we make at every layer create a significant quality gap compared to generic solutions. That's why lawyers adopt Silex.

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“The real value isn’t in the model - it’s in the legal infrastructure behind it.”

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Today, many people assume that whoever builds the best AI model will win. Why do you believe that's the wrong way to think about legal AI?
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Kyriaki: Many people confuse the model with the product.

The large language model is only a small component of our technology stack. In fact, it comes at the very end of the process. The real value isn't in the model - it's in the legal infrastructure behind it.

Another important differentiator is that we are a lawyer-led startup. We know the industry because we've worked in it ourselves. We understand the standards legal professionals expect and the constraints they operate under, particularly when it comes to confidentiality and professional secrecy.

That's why I think it's important to distinguish between a model and a product. The model is only one piece of the puzzle.

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Why is now the right time for legal professionals to embrace AI?

Kyriaki: Because the technology has reached a point where it can create real value for legal professionals. Legal professionals need to get on board, experiment with these tools, and understand what they can do.

As we often say:

“AI will not replace lawyers. Lawyers who use AI will replace lawyers who don't.”

We are already seeing that happen. Lawyers who use AI effectively are becoming significantly more efficient than those who don't. My advice is simple: be curious. Try it yourself, understand its strengths and limitations and get familiar with it.

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“Law firms and legal departments are sitting on a gold mine of accumulated experience and data.”

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More than 800 customers in 10 months: What was your secret sauce for achieving that steep growth curve?

Kyriaki: First, we deliberately waited before going to market. Many people advised us to launch earlier, but we knew legal professionals would only give us one chance to make a good first impression. We wanted the product to be genuinely ready.

Second, we stay extremely close to our clients. Every piece of feedback is taken seriously. We document it, discuss it, and use it to improve the product. That feedback loop has been critical to our progress.

Today, a lot of growth comes through referrals because the product solves a problem people have already identified themselves.

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What are you most excited about next?

Kyriaki: The feature I'm most excited about is the Silo, which will allow legal professionals to connect their internal knowledge to Silex in a secure and private way.
We've realized that law firms and legal departments are sitting on a gold mine of accumulated experience and data. Yet most of that knowledge remains difficult to access and reuse. With the Silo, users will be able to combine external legal research with their own institutional knowledge and finally unlock the value of expertise that already exists within their organizations.

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I believe this will be a real game changer - not only because it makes legal work more efficient, but because it allows legal professionals to build on the collective knowledge of their teams in a completely new way.

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Many thanks for sharing these insights with us, all the Best, Kyriaki!

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