During the course of the next decade, more likely the next five years, we will get to the stage where nobody will visit a law firm’s website to arrange an appointment.
Not one person.
The era of search bars, drop-down menus, and laborious form-filling is already drawing to a close.
Instead, people will simply tell their personal appointment arranging AI agent what they need:
“Book me a family solicitor near me, who will be able to help me with a custody dispute. I need them to offer a free initial 30-minute consultation, to be well reviewed and also provide me with clarity on their fee structure”,
or
“I need advice on a contract dispute. I have the contracts and a narrative of the history. Find me a solicitor with clear expertise in their area who uses AI to prequalify. Their AI should be able to review my documents and assess whether they are able to help. They should also indicate why they are the best firm to deal with it.”
From there, the agent will take over – searching, qualifying, and arranging the right solution with no further effort required from the prospective client.
"In the next five years, clients won’t visit your website - their AI agents will."
How will this work?
Imagine this:
- You have a handheld device, maybe your phone, maybe not, built on a Gen AI framework (perhaps designed by the same person who designed your iPhone, as he now works for OpenAI)
- This handheld device is your agent and receives your instructions by text or voice. It acts on your instructions and, using a range of criteria and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), begins working on identifying firms that match your criteria.
- It interacts directly with a law firm’s own digital agent, without you ever opening a browser
- Together, those agents check solicitor availability, confirm the appointment, handle compliance tasks such as ID and anti-money-laundering checks, and even gather initial information
- By the time you speak to your solicitor – or your agent speaks to theirs – the groundwork is already done
"Law firms must stop designing for human clicks and start building for machine-to-machine conversations.”
- Websites cease to be destinations for human visitors; they become machine-readable service hubs designed for AI-to-AI interaction
- The client experience is radically streamlined: zero friction, zero waiting, zero paperwork
- Law firms must adapt, not by adding more buttons or forms, but by building infrastructure that can converse fluently with client agents
This is not science fiction. It is the natural evolution of today’s AI-driven assistants, taken on another level by OpenAI’s Agent Mode and the move towards frictionless digital services.
Those firms that recognise the shift early and begin reimagining their digital front doors as APIs for intelligent agents rather than brochures for human browsers will be the ones who survive in the new landscape of client engagement.
The current question for law firms is “How do we attract people to our website?” The future question is “How do we ensure AI agents choose us and can achieve their objectives?”At MLT Digital, we are putting AI at the centre of everything we are working on and are working with all of our future-oriented law firm customers on evolving for this new landscape. If you’d like to find out more about what we do, please get in touch.
Stephen Moore
Qualified lawyer and founder of MLT, I’ve spent over 20 years helping law firms grow by turning complex technology into simple, results-driven digital solutions.
