LexisNexis® South Africa introduced ProtégéTM Workflows in March 2026. A new generation of AI-enabled legal workflow tools designed to guide legal professionals through complex legal tasks in a structured, repeatable way. The introduction forms part of the broader global rollout of Lexis+® with ProtégéTM, an integrated legal AI platform grounded in citable authority and designed to support end-to-end legal work within a single environment.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) hasn’t been the stuff of science fiction for some time now. It has already reshaped the modern workplace, changing the way organisations access, process and manage vast amounts of information, almost overnight.
Yet, within professional services, its role can still feel somewhat elusive. AI has delivered measurable efficiency gains, but there’s a growing sense that those gains, at least in their current form, may be plateauing.
Narrowing the focus to the legal profession, said Desigan Naidoo, Executive Manager: Technology at LexisNexis® South Africa, AI tools have become widely adopted for tasks such as research, drafting and document analysis. However, their integration into the broader workflow of legal practice remains uneven. “This disconnect has in turn informed how the sector is preparing for its next phase, to address the challenges of legal work in particular,” he explains.
Legal work isn’t a collection of independent tasks, it’s a sequence, each step building on the last. Requiring consistency, verification, and professional judgement. When AI is applied in fragments, it can speed up one part of the process while slowing down another. In other words, efficiency in isolation doesn’t always translate to efficient and accurate outputs overall. And that’s where the friction lies.
Presently, in this kind of environment, the application of AI created inevitable silos. “Fragmentation of work products has been the key limitation,” said Naidoo. “Rather than streamlining operations end to end, disconnected tools can introduce new inefficiencies, undermining the initial gains made in speed,” he said.
So, the conversation is changing. It’s no longer just about what AI can do, rather it’s about where and how it fits into the real mechanics of legal work.
Consequently, thinking around AI adoption is changing towards more practical, profession-specific application of the technology. “We all know AI can provide answers,” he said, “but the burning question is whether those outputs can be embedded within the workflows that govern how legal work is produced.
This marks a subtle but important evolution: AI must now adapt to the way professionals work, not the other way around. “Efficiency gains alone are not enough.” Because when it doesn’t, it risks becoming just another layer of complexity. When complexity in legal practice, is the very thing technology is meant to reduce.
In response to this gap between capability and application, LexisNexis® recently launched its LexisNexis ProtégéTM AI capabilities in South Africa. Designed to operate within structured workflows the platform combines legal content, validation processes and secure infrastructure into a single cohesive environment.
“It’s the silo breaker,” Naidoo says.
“We’ve already achieved speed with AI. Now the focus shifts to quality across the entire value-chain, and how technology can support consistent, defensible outcomes in complex, real world workflows.”
Because ultimately, efficiency alone isn’t the goal. Without alignment between technology and practice, even the most advanced AI risks falling short.
Integrated systems like Lexis+® with ProtégéTM, are a necessary step in ensuring that AI can deliver outcomes that meet professional standards, actively assisting the way legal work is done from start to finish.