Making AI a trusted member of the team.

Troutman Pepper Locke was one of the first US law firms to launch a firm-wide generative AI assistant. Athena was built to help lawyers and staff work smarter, but its success would depend on people choosing to use it.

Great technology doesn’t drive adoption on its own and for a tool this new, in a profession built on judgement and trust, people needed to feel confident and comfortable before they would make it part of their working day.

The opportunity was to shape how people first met Athena. The goal was to make it feel natural, friendly and frictionless, positioning it as something that supports expertise rather than replacing it. We wanted Athena to feel like a trusted colleague.

To achieve that, we created a human, approachable identity for Athena and a launch inspired by the best of consumer tech, so it felt familiar, easy to use and simple to try.

In its first 12 months Athena gained more than 1,000 users and handled 100,000 prompts, and the work earned recognition from the Financial Times.

The insight

New technology is usually launched on what it can do, but adoption follows when people understand what it means for them, and feel that it’s on their side.