In their recent article “For AI Productivity Gains, Let Team Leaders Write the Rules” (MIT Sloan Management Review, Oct. 15, 2025), authors Robert C. Pozen and Renee Fry deliver a clear message: the productivity promise of AI depends on empowering team leaders, not just creating centralized oversight. Their survey of 348 business professionals found that while corporate guidelines are essential, real transformation happens when teams define how AI is applied in their daily work.
This insight carries particular weight for law firms, many of which have formed “AI committees” or “task forces” to coordinate strategy and governance. These groups often hold good intentions — but in practice, they can unintentionally centralize understanding, control decision-making, and slow adoption. The lesson from Pozen and Fry’s research is simple: strategy should not smother initiative.
Redefining the Role of the AI Committee
Law firms should ask whether their AI committee is helping or hindering progress. If it exists primarily to approve tools, write policies, or review every pilot, the firm risks creating bottlenecks. Instead, the committee’s role should be one of strategy, guardrails, and leadership — not tactical management.
Strategy is about defining the outcomes you want to achieve, not prescribing every step along the way. For example, an AI strategy might set objectives such as improving client response time, reducing manual drafting effort, or enhancing research accuracy. Those are measurable, outcome-based goals. How teams achieve them — the specific workflows, prompts, or integrations — should be determined locally, where lawyers, paralegals, and support staff know the work best.
Setting Guardrails That Empower, Not Constrain
Guardrails define the toolkit and safety rules for AI use. They create confidence, not bureaucracy. A guardrail might specify that the firm is a “Microsoft Copilot” shop, a “ChatGPT Enterprise” firm, or a “best-of-breed” environment where departments adopt the most relevant niche tools for their practice. Safety rules might require that all AI-assisted outputs go through a “human-in-the-loop” review, or that citations generated by AI be verified by researchers before use in client work.
These principles are what make AI adoption responsible, but they also keep decision-making close to the work. Teams can innovate within boundaries — the key to unlocking productivity.
Leadership Through Enablement
Leadership in AI is not about directing every task. It’s about setting clear objectives, enabling experimentation within the guardrails, and celebrating team-level progress. The best leaders challenge practice groups to re-examine their ways of working, to test AI tools where they make sense, and to share what’s learned. They also have the humility to adjust the strategy and guardrails as technology and understanding evolve.
The Path Forward for Law Firms
At Unbiased Consulting, we believe AI committees have a place — but team leaders are the front line of change. They understand the day-to-day realities of legal work and are best positioned to identify where AI amplifies impact. Our methodology helps firms define new ways of working, align them to measurable outcomes, and embed AI in a way that moves beyond endless pilots to real implementation and benefits for both firm and client.
AI is not an if. It’s a now. Don’t let centralization hold you back. Empower your team leaders, and your firm will lead the change instead of watching it happen.