In-House Legal AI Moves From Assistive Search to Autonomous Deal Workflows

Legal AI is evolving beyond document retrieval into agentic systems that independently draft, negotiate, and close contracts within defined guardrails. Sandstone, which raised $40M from Sequoia and Lightspeed, exemplifies this shift toward encoding institutional knowledge into autonomous workflows. The transition could allow in-house legal departments to reduce external counsel spending and scale output without proportional headcount growth—fundamentally reshaping the legal services market's structure.