For the past three years, I have had the privilege of gathering insights from some of the most respected KM thought leaders and legal experts. Their perspectives reveal a clear and powerful trajectory. We have moved from preparing for AI to governing AI enabled knowledge ecosystems and in 2026, firms should be moving towards fully integrating orchestrated intelligence into the flow of legal work.
This evolution sits at the heart of the knowledge trends 2026 findings, which show a profession moving from experimentation to operational transformation. What began in 2024 as a return to KM fundamentals has, by 2026, matured into a fully integrated model where knowledge, humans, and AI operate as one system.
2024 marked the reset. After a year of intense GenAI experimentation, firms confronted a fundamental truth: AI cannot deliver value on top of unstable knowledge foundations.
Experts across the sector emphasized structure, quality, and clarity. As Jenni Tellyn, 3Kites noted, “GenAI will work best when it is given high quality content to work with.”
This meant returning to taxonomy, curation, architecture, and the discipline that underpins trustworthy knowledge systems.
Justin North, Pickering Pearce, captured the shift clearly, predicting “a significant change in the perception and value proposition of knowledge management” as firms realized that data on its own is not insight.
2024 became the year of delivery over hype, where KM teams focused on strengthening the backbone that future AI systems would rely on.
By 2025, firms had moved into a more pragmatic phase. AI was no longer a standalone experiment. It became inseparable from KM.
As Jenni Tellyn summarized, “The fundamental building blocks of a good KM landscape… are going to receive more focus than ever.” This focus translated into better governance, refreshed content, and clearly defined knowledge collections.
2025 was also the year of human balance. With the pace of AI adoption accelerating, legal professionals needed reassurance that judgement, credibility, and tacit expertise remained essential. Marjan Hermkes–van Ham reinforced this point: transformation “is not about technology; it is about people.”
Grant Newton from ClearPeople, described 2024 as a year of learning about GenAI. In 2025, firms shifted to iteration, evidence, and trust building across AI enabled KM use cases.
This was the year legal KM trends matured and firms recognized that high value AI requires high quality governance.
Knowledge trends 2026 highlight the most significant transition yet.
This is the year AI stops being an add on and becomes a fully embedded part of legal workflows.
Kate Simpson, Epiq Consulting, describes the rise of dynamic, AI informed collections that are short lived, rapid, contextual and evolving. These collections sit outside traditional precedent banks and require new lifecycle governance, metadata discipline, and KM leadership.
Human cognition becomes the competitive differentiator. As Justin North puts it, “The next differentiator isn’t what firms know, but how effectively their people think.”
2026 introduces an environment where:
Jenni Tellyn expressed the ambition clearly for 2026: “Let this be the year when we see the ecosystem of people and systems working in harmony.”
And Sean Gelchion distilled the principle that defines the year: “In 2026, AI works when knowledge is human centred and structured.”
These are not technology trends but operating model shifts that redefine the profession.
The three-year trajectory tells a compelling story:
2024: Strengthen the foundations
2025: Govern the ecosystem and balance human and AI roles
2026: Orchestrate AI, knowledge and people as a unified system
The firms that succeed will be those who treat knowledge not as static content but as infrastructure.
Not as a repository but as a dynamic, high value, governed asset.
Not as an afterthought but as the operational backbone of modern legal work.
These are the knowledge trends 2026 that every KM, innovation and IT leader must address now.
Download the Trends Shaping Knowledge in 2026 e-book and explore the full analysis, expert insights and practical implications for KM and innovation leaders.