Generative AI vs predictive AI

The distinction between generative AI and predictive AI is fundamental to understanding today's legaltech landscape. Generative AI, embodied by LLMs such as GPT-4, Claude or Mistral, creates new content: it drafts pleadings, summarizes court decisions, and generates draft contracts. Predictive AI, by contrast, analyzes patterns in historical data to anticipate future outcomes.

In the French legal sector, the two approaches coexist and complement each other. Predictice (acquired by Doctrine in July 2025) is the flagship example of predictive AI applied to law: by analyzing millions of court decisions, the platform estimates the odds of a successful appeal, likely compensation ranges, and case law trends. On the other side, generative tools assist lawyers with drafting, research and summarization.

The future lies in the convergence of these two approaches. The most advanced legaltech solutions already combine predictive analytics and text generation: estimating the likely outcome of a dispute (predictive), then generating a reasoned defense strategy accordingly (generative). This complementarity gives legal professionals a complete picture, from strategic analysis to document production.