Canadian media company Thomson Reuters (TRI) has struck a deal to acquire Casetext, a start-up that has developed an artificial intelligence (A.I.) assistant to help legal professionals, for $650 million U.S. in cash.
Toronto-based Thomson Reuters previously said that it plans to spend about $100 million U.S. a year on A.I. technologies as it seeks to remain competitive in the global news gathering business.
Privately held Casetext's main product is “CoCounsel,” a legal assistant powered by generative A.I. platform GPT-4 that can conduct document reviews, write legal memos, prepare depositions, and complete contract analysis in only a few minutes time.
California-based Casetext employs about 100 people, and its customers include more than 10,000 law firms and corporate legal departments worldwide.
Commonly referred to as chatbots, generative A.I. is capable of producing content or data in response to a verbal or text command in a matter of minutes. The technology has taken the world by storm in the last year.
The acquisition of Casetext is expected to close in the second half of this year, said Thomson Reuters.
The stock of Thomson Reuters has gained 28% in the past 12 months and currently trades at $177.91 per share.
