Epigram content: AI won’t replace legal design teams, but it will expose weak ones

There’s a lot of dramatic commentary about AI “coming for” creative teams. In legal marketing, where everyone is already stretched, it’s easy to see why that narrative sticks. But I don’t think AI is the real threat. Mediocrity is.

AI won’t replace strong legal design teams. What it will do, quite ruthlessly, is expose the ones that were never that strong to begin with.

Yes, AI can generate layouts, draft content, build slides and create imagery in seconds. That’s impressive. It’s also slightly misleading if we equate speed with value. Design in a law firm isn’t just about producing assets quickly; it’s about translating complex, nuanced thinking into something clear, credible and commercially aligned. It’s about understanding how partners think, recognising the difference between a regulatory update, a global pitch and a thought leadership campaign, and shaping the visual response accordingly. AI can’t invent that context, it can only work with what already exists.

If your brand guidelines are vague, AI will interpret them loosely. If your templates are clunky, AI-generated content won’t sit comfortably within them. If your positioning is fuzzy, outputs will drift towards safe, generic “corporate” design. In other words, AI doesn’t fix weak foundations, it amplifies them.

That’s why the unglamorous work matters. When we develop structured PowerPoint templates with properly built master pages, embedded fonts and carefully considered layout systems, it isn’t about box-ticking; it’s about creating a framework that protects brand integrity under pressure.

Done properly, templates aren’t restrictive, they’re liberating. They remove friction, reduce risk and create space for better thinking.

And here’s the interesting shift: the more AI handles production, the greater the need for strong human creative partners. When everyone has access to the same generative tools, differentiation becomes harder, not easier. If every firm can produce a polished slide deck in minutes, what separates one from another? If every campaign visual is AI-assisted, what makes yours distinctive?

This is where sector fluency and creative judgement become more valuable, not less. A specialist agency that understands the legal world knows where the sensitivities sit. It knows how to balance credibility with personality, how to build systems that scale across global offices without flattening individuality, and when to challenge a safe idea. AI won’t push back in a strategy session, connect disparate strands of a firm’s positioning into a coherent visual narrative, or sense when something feels off-brand. People do that.

So yes, AI will change workflows. It will accelerate production and make certain tasks quicker and cheaper. But it will also raise the bar, and in doing so, increase the need for creative partners who bring ideas, structure and a deep understanding of how law firms actually operate.

The future isn’t human versus AI. It’s strong teams, using AI well, and being very clear about the value only humans can add.