Adidas Introduces AI Legal Chatbot for Enhanced Staff Guidance
Adidas has taken a major step in digital transformation by launching an AI legal chatbot to provide instant legal and compliance guidance to its global workforce. The new tool, developed in partnership with Josef, aims to address the challenges of disseminating complex legal information to over 65,000 employees, making compliance more accessible and engaging for everyone.
Tackling ‘Infobesity’ and Low Engagement
Katherine Roseveare, General Counsel for Global Functions, Global Operations and Legal Solutions at Adidas, highlighted the core issue prompting the deployment: a phenomenon she calls “infobesity.” In large organizations, legal teams generate extensive policy documents, but employees often overlook these resources due to their overwhelming volume and traditional formats. Roseveare explained, “The biggest users of Word in the whole business are the legal team. Lawyers love producing documents, policies, frameworks. But nobody wants to read those anymore.”
This realization led Adidas to adopt an AI legal chatbot that mirrors how employees prefer to search for information in their daily work. Instead of navigating through lengthy intranet pages or policy PDFs, staff can now ask questions in natural language and receive reliable, concise answers instantly.
Ensuring Accuracy and Reliability in Compliance
The rollout of the AI legal chatbot began with the compliance function, coinciding with the introduction of a new code of conduct. Adidas’ legal team meticulously reviewed internal knowledge bases to identify topics suitable for AI-powered responses while maintaining strict standards for accuracy and control. Given the sensitivity of compliance matters, ensuring precise and dependable answers was a top priority. Roseveare emphasized, “I don’t want to see a hallucination, thank you very much. This is too delicate a topic. I want people to be able to come and have certainty in the answers. We have to. It’s too risky.”
Before selecting Josef as their partner, Adidas evaluated other internal solutions such as Microsoft Copilot and large language model APIs, ultimately choosing the platform that best aligned with their reliability and oversight requirements.
Unlocking Hidden Insights Through AI Legal Chatbot Interactions
The use of the AI legal chatbot is not only streamlining access to information but also surfacing employee concerns that may have previously gone unaddressed. Sam Flynn, Co-Founder at Josef, noted that self-service tools like this encourage staff to ask questions they might hesitate to raise directly with the legal team, especially on sensitive issues such as gifts or conduct. These interactions provide valuable insights into areas where employees feel uncertain and highlight gaps in existing training materials.
Roseveare added that the AI legal chatbot has been particularly beneficial for employees working in their second language. Instead of drafting carefully worded emails or sorting through dense documentation, they can simply ask questions naturally and receive prompt, clear guidance. The data generated from these exchanges gives Adidas’ legal team a deeper understanding of staff concerns and helps shape future compliance training and communication strategies.
Change Management: The Key to Legal Tech Success
Roseveare emphasized that successful legal technology projects depend as much on effective change management as on the software itself. It is crucial to consider how employees interact with new tools, particularly in environments where legal functions have traditionally relied on documents, emails, and manual guidance. Her philosophy is guided by two rules: assume nothing and embrace the chaos. This approach means testing whether the AI legal chatbot fits existing working habits and whether even skeptical users can be converted by seeing tangible benefits.
She recounted a previous experience with a DocuSign rollout, where a once-resistant user became a strong advocate after recognizing its advantages. This “super duper wow wow” effect has since become the benchmark for successful legal tech adoption within Adidas. Roseveare explained, “Now every time we do something, we say we are aiming for super duper wow wow. Who is our super duper wow wow person that we need to find in the group and bring along on that journey?”
Shaping the Future of Legal Guidance at Adidas
The AI legal chatbot initiative is part of a broader commitment at Adidas to make internal guidance more accessible across its global workforce while maintaining tight control over the quality and consistency of information provided. Roseveare concluded, “If you want it to stick, you really have to invest in change management. It doesn’t matter which tool it is.”
As more companies seek to harness the power of AI legal chatbots for compliance and staff guidance, the lessons from Adidas underscore the importance of user-centric design, reliable technology, and ongoing change management in delivering lasting value.
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