For railroads
I work with railroads that want to introduce artificial intelligence into how they operate, and my job is to make sure the legal consequences get thought through while the decisions are still being made rather than two years later in somebody's deposition. I use these tools every day in my own firm, so I know what they actually do and what's just sales talk.
Step one
Claims
The first read of a new claim, the indexing of what came in with it, and the summary that lands on a claims professional's desk. This is the same work I automated on the defense side, which means I already know where it breaks.
Records
Volume review that a human being shouldn't be doing page by page. Also the highest-risk category, because it's where confidentiality and privacy obligations attach.
Compliance
The paperwork a railroad generates every day. Inspection records, training documentation, and the reporting obligations that only become visible when somebody goes looking for them in discovery.
Vendors
There's a great deal of it on the market now and the quality is uneven. I can tell you which claims are plausible, what a contract should say about your data, and which questions to ask before signing.
Step two, at the same time
What these tools take in and put out can end up in a lawsuit. It's easier to plan for that now than to sort it out later.
What you put into a tool and what it gives back can be requested, and one day will be. If a model produced an assessment of an incident, plaintiff's counsel is entitled to ask about it. Decide now how that record is going to look.
Your retention policy was written before any of this existed. If prompts and outputs fall outside it, you have created a category of record that nobody is preserving and nobody is disposing of on purpose. That can lead to a spoliation dispute.
Anything touching hiring, discipline, medical qualification or return to work sits in a body of law that doesn't care how the decision was reached. Automating a step doesn't move the obligation.
The moment a tool touches injury reports, medical records or personnel files, the question stops being about efficiency and becomes about where that data goes, who trains on it, and what your contract actually promises.
How this works
I don't resell tools, I don't take referral fees from anyone who does, and I have nothing to gain from a railroad adopting any particular product. What I have is a law practice I built around these tools and years of defending cases where these records come up.
Some of this is legal advice and gets billed as legal work. Some of it is a conversation about where the effort is worth it. Either way it starts the same way, with a call about what your operation does all day.