ILTACON 2025: What we heard (and why it matters)

Legal teams know AI is no longer just an idea, but major challenges still stand in the way of confidence.

ILTACON 2025 is over - what a week!  The Confidencial team was thrilled to participate alongside hundreds of legal professionals and other trusted technology partners. While the days were long, the conversations were brilliant, centered on where legaltech is heading and what that means for legal teams and their clients.

While AI has been a considerable part of previous conferences, the 2025 vibe was definitely different. Discussions on the impact of AI on legal work are no longer theoretical: even with all the risks that remain, AI is already producing meaningful results for legal teams. This year was all about understanding and solving the practical challenges still standing in the way. 

That happens to be our focus, too.

At ILTACON, legal and tech leaders kept circling the same three themes. As they integrate AI into their workflows, the same challenges keep surfacing - revealing exactly what’s keeping legal and risk teams up at night. Fortunately, Confidencial is built to solve them.

Legal data is everywhere, and tracking it all is now nearly impossible

Data collection and usage are accelerating faster than many teams can control.

What we heard

Legal teams are challenged by the uncontrolled spread of sensitive data across cloud platforms, file shares, external portals, and legacy systems. Legal document management systems are no longer sufficient, since unstructured data and the associated risks extend far beyond them. 

There’s also growing pressure to protect not just entire documents, but the sensitive information within them: think clauses, not files.

How we help

Confidencial automatically identifies and classifies sensitive legal content wherever it lives - including NetDocs, iManage, file shares, email, and cloud storage.

Its context-aware, fine-grained controls secure both documents and the sensitive data within, without requiring workflow changes. Legal teams gain seamless policy enforcement, real-time risk reduction, and comprehensive protection for client-confidential and privileged information.

AI is inevitable, so start building data guardrails now

For most firms, AI is a question of when, not if.

What we heard

Legal professionals are actively experimenting with GenAI, but concerns over privilege waiver, confidentiality breaches, and regulatory risks are escalating. Many firms lack visibility and control over exactly what sensitive data is shared with LLMs and AI copilots. Without guardrails in place, there’s a heightened risk of inadvertently exposing privileged or confidential client information through AI interactions.

How we help

Confidencial deploys encryption and access controls before data ever enters any AI workflow, ensuring sensitive information is protected at every stage. Our platform enables firms to redact, block, or permit data based on policy, preserving usability without compromising compliance. Its protection covers model training, retrieval, and user output pipelines, providing end-to-end safeguarding of sensitive data in AI environments.

Encryption is critical, but so is auditability and control.

Protecting the data is critical, but it’s not enough on its own

What we heard

Legal professionals report that traditional encryption solutions disrupt critical workflows - search, redlining, version control, and offline access can suddenly become unreliable or even unusable. Firms want strong data protection, but not at the expense of collaboration. Clients also increasingly question how—and where—their sensitive information is stored, accessed, and shared, adding pressure for transparent controls. 

When those questions come up, firms need clear, confident answers

How we help

Confidencial uses selective encryption, protecting sensitive data while ensuring teams retain full functionality for search, preview, annotation, redaction, and sharing. Built-in audit trail capabilities and granular permissions provide complete visibility over every access and change. Control remains with each file, so protections persist even when documents leave the firm’s perimeter, meeting client and regulatory demands for secure data sharing.

The data protection conversation is just getting started–and Confidencial is ready for it.

Let’s face it: nobody’s asking for a bigger tech stack, even when it comes to something as important as data protection. This is a universal theme that we heard at ILTACON and beyond: legal teams don’t want more tools. They want technology that works. The reality? Most point solutions still aren’t solving the problem. Sensitive data remains exposed, and AI initiatives remain risky.

Busy legal professionals are feeling this even harder, and they’re demanding a foundational approach to secure and seamless data protection (both today and tomorrow).

Legal orgs need robust, user-friendly security that adapts as technology evolves.

We’re excited to be building the next generation of data protection infrastructure that will make this happen.

Curious how Confidencial could fit into your AI and data protection strategy?

Get a demo tailored to your firm’s workflows.