eDiscovery and related data-driven legal processes are entering a period of accelerated transformation. What defines the current moment is not a single technological or regulatory shift, but rather the convergence of several developments: Rapid advances in Generative AI, changing organizational structures and skill profiles, the growing importance of cloud-based infrastructures, and a geopolitical and regulatory environment that is continuing to evolve. Some organizations still encounter these developments as isolated trends. More mature organizations, however, increasingly recognize that their combined effect is reshaping how eDiscovery is approached and embedded in broader business processes.
These developments create new challenges but also open up new possibilities for how eDiscovery is designed and operated. Established models are being reassessed, and expectations around speed, efficiency, cost and defensibility continue to shift. As a result, the core question is no longer simply how to optimize existing processes, but how to build approaches that remain efficient, scalable, and robust in an environment defined by continual change.
Against this backdrop, we recently conducted a study involving more than 500 respondents across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The results illustrate both the progress made in recent years and the structural challenges that remain. They also point to a growing need for orientation, particularly as expectations around efficiency, cost, and responsiveness continue to shift without becoming fully aligned.
Over the coming months, we will build on these findings in a series of articles in Deutscher AnwaltSpiegel to examine the most important themes in greater depth. The aim is to offer orientation and contribute to a more structured dialogue across legal, compliance, and technology functions.
Later in the year, these perspectives will also be brought together in a roundtable discussion (see here), creating a forum to examine how these developments translate into practice and what they imply for future operating models.
In the following, we outline four key themes that have emerged from the current landscape and that will be explored in more detail in the upcoming articles.
A changing landscape: Converging forces and emerging tensions
The eDiscovery landscape is being reshaped by developments that, taken individually, are familiar, but whose combination creates a new level of complexity.
Cloud-based infrastructures have become a central element in many environments, enabling scale and flexibility while changing how data is stored and accessed. At the same time, the need for more controlled or alternative setups remains and is increasingly being revisited in light of geopolitical and regulatory considerations. This creates a practical tension between efficiency and control that organizations need to actively manage.
Generative AI is moving beyond a specialized legal procedure and is being embedded in standardized workflows, particularly in areas such as review support, chatbot-based data exploration, and early case assessment. At the same time, adoption remains uneven across organizations.
Workforce-related aspects are evolving in parallel. Organizations are increasingly required to rethink how expertise is structured and applied across functions. Roles are shifting from execution towards oversight, interpretation, and orchestration, while new hybrid profiles are emerging that combine legal, analytical, and technological expertise. At the same time, relevant capabilities remain unevenly distributed, requiring more deliberate coordination across legal, compliance, and technical teams and often adjustments in collaboration models and organizational setup. This is especially true as GenAI – if applied in a defensible manner – democratizes access to data and electronically stored information. At the same time, it creates new types of data, such as deep fakes or reconstructed information from artefacts, that require highly skilled experts to avoid misinterpretation.
What is particularly striking is that these developments are not unfolding in isolation. They are interconnected and often mutually reinforcing. Cloud-based systems, for example, create new opportunities for AI-driven analysis and make such capabilities more broadly accessible, while simultaneously raising new questions of governance and regulation.
In this context, questions of digital sovereignty are becoming more prominent. In Europe in particular, policy discussions and regulatory developments increasingly emphasize the need to balance the benefits of global technology ecosystems with considerations around control, resilience, and legal exposure. As data processing depends more heavily on globally distributed infrastructures, control over data, systems, and providers becomes a central consideration. In practice, digital sovereignty is not a binary objective. Organizations must navigate trade-offs between control, scalability, efficiency, and access to innovation, determining what level of sovereignty is necessary and achievable in a given context.
What to expect next:
A structured analysis of the main drivers of change and how they translate into practical choices in technology, governance, and operating models.
Regulation: From complexity to design principle
Regulatory requirements are continuing to evolve across multiple dimensions. Established frameworks such as the GDPR remain highly relevant, while new instruments, including the EU AI Act, are beginning to influence how eDiscovery processes are designed and assessed.
At the same time, regulation is increasingly acting as a design factor rather than a constraint applied retrospectively. Requirements relating to data protection, cross-border transfers, and the use of technology providers directly shape how eDiscovery processes are structured in practice.
For many organizations, this creates an environment that can appear difficult to navigate, particularly in cross-border and multi-jurisdictional scenarios. The challenge, however, is not to address each case from first principles, but to develop structured approaches that can be applied consistently while retaining the flexibility needed for specific circumstances. This requires organizations to maintain a clear view of relevant developments, understand how interpretation and enforcement are evolving, and translate these into practical guidance.
Regulatory considerations also intersect more strongly with broader strategic decisions, including data hosting, provider selection, and operating models. This reinforces the need to align legal, technical, and operational perspectives.
What to expect next:
A practical overview of the regulatory landscape and how organizations can translate it into workable governance, processes, and decision frameworks.
Cost and efficiency: Rising expectations and widening gaps
Cost considerations are becoming increasingly central to how organizations approach eDiscovery, particularly as technological capabilities evolve.
Investments in automation, AI, and scalable infrastructures are increasing. At the same time, these developments influence expectations regarding speed and cost, as improvements in selected use cases establish new reference points.
In practice, automation and AI can significantly reduce manual effort in standardized tasks. At the same time, quality assurance, governance, and oversight remain necessary – or are becoming even more important – particularly in more complex or risk-sensitive scenarios. Consequently, cost structures are not simply reduced, but reconfigured.
A growing differentiation is becoming visible. More standardized use cases can be handled with significantly less effort, in some instances approaching largely automated execution. Complex matters, by contrast, continue to demand substantial coordination and expertise. Our study illustrates this dynamic. The cost per gigabyte for a full eDiscovery exercise typically remains below €3,000, but the overall range is considerable, with project costs varying according to scope, complexity, and approach. Document review costs similarly span from below €0.10 to more than €2 per document, reflecting the difference between highly automated workflows and complex, case-specific reviews.
As these differences become more visible, expectations are shifting. Traditional assumptions regarding cost and timelines are increasingly being questioned, requiring organizations to reassess how efficiency and value are defined and communicated.
What to expect next:
A practitioner’s perspective on cost drivers, efficiency levers, and how organizations can realistically assess and manage the evolving cost landscape.
Beyond eDiscovery: From established workflows to new applications
Beyond its traditional use in litigation and investigations, eDiscovery approaches and tools are increasingly being applied to a wider range of data-driven use cases.
First, existing processes and technologies can be applied to new domains with similar requirements. For example, tax-related obligations increasingly require the identification and provision of relevant communications, creating scenarios that closely resemble classical eDiscovery workflows.
Second, technological developments, particularly in automation and AI, make certain use cases significantly more feasible and scalable than before. This is particularly relevant in areas such as data subject access requests.
Third, the combination of eDiscovery methods with advanced analytics enables new applications. The boundary between structured and unstructured data is becoming less distinct, enabling integrated workflows, for example in investigations or regulatory contexts.
Taken together, these developments point to a broader shift. eDiscovery is evolving into a more general organizational capability for responding to data-driven requirements across functions, rather than being confined to a limited set of traditional use cases.
What to expect next:
Concrete examples of how eDiscovery capabilities can be extended and how organizations can build scalable, cross-functional data response models.
Invitation to continue the discussion
We will publish our study findings ahead of our August roundtable, where we will discuss these themes with practitioners from legal, compliance, IT, and related functions. The aim is to move beyond isolated observations and foster a shared understanding of how eDiscovery and data-driven processes are evolving in practice.
We invite readers to follow the upcoming articles in this series and to join the discussion as we explore how organizations can translate these developments into robust, practical, and future-oriented approaches. ß
