After months of anticipation, NetDocuments showcased its groundbreaking semantic search capability at the Inspire EMEA event, promising to transform document discoverability within its Document Management System (DMS). This innovation, combined with AI-driven auto-profiling, aims to enhance content accessibility like never before.
For some time, NetDocuments has integrated a semantic index within its legal AI assistant, allowing users to search by meaning rather than mere keywords. However, this feature was limited by the number of documents it could process and its slower speed. Now, by extending semantic search across the DMS, the possibilities expand not only for legal professionals seeking documents but also for intelligent AI tools capable of searching, retrieving, and acting based on document findings.
Demonstration at Inspire EMEA
During the Inspire EMEA event, Scott Kelly, Director of Product Management, demonstrated the potential of this new search feature. He enacted the role of a sports entertainment attorney searching for an old precedent with vague details. A keyword search returned no results, highlighting the challenge of locating specific documents. Kelly explained, “They might spend hours looking for the needle in the haystack.” However, using a combination of semantic and keyword search significantly enhances document findability.
Academic studies support that the optimal search approach combines semantic and keyword methods, and these now run concurrently within the new system. This advancement aligns with NetDocuments’ capability to execute AI profiling at scale, enabling firms to label millions of documents with precise metadata, a task previously limited to smaller batches.
Jill Schornack, Vice President of Product, remarked during a public demo session, “The scale of this is going to blow your mind.” NetDocuments collaborates with Elasticsearch and AWS to bring this new capability to fruition, rolling it out globally in phases. Initially, smaller firms or those not using FlexStore for regional file storage are likely to benefit.
Industry Feedback
Maurice Tunney, Director of Technology and Innovation at UK-based law firm Keystone Law, expressed enthusiasm about the new AI search feature. “The new AI search looks amazing. It will save so much time, especially for lawyers searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The current search works well if you know what you’re looking for, but life isn’t always that straightforward,” Tunney noted.
He added that the semantic search elevates their capabilities to unprecedented levels. Coupled with upcoming ndAssistant enhancements, it equips lawyers with powerful tools to leverage their expertise and DMS knowledge for crafting superior client documents efficiently. “The days where a document management system is just a secure, static, and centralized repository are numbered,” he stated.
Commercial Considerations
The adoption timeline for this new functionality will largely depend on NetDocuments’ pricing strategy. Tunney highlighted that, “How NetDocuments will charge for it and how the commercials look is a different conversation.”
As NetDocuments continues its phased rollout, the legal industry watches closely to see how this transformative technology will reshape document management and accessibility.
Note: This article is inspired by content from https://legaltechnology.com/2025/11/06/netdocuments-demos-semantic-search-ai-profiling-at-scale-at-inspire-emea/. It has been rephrased for originality. Images are credited to the original source.