Ropes & Gray teams with OpenAI on due diligence AI

Ropes & Gray is developing an AI-powered transactional due diligence tool with OpenAI. The system is intended to produce issue-level diligence reports in hours.

The proprietary tool is being built to support deal teams reviewing transaction materials under tight deadlines, particularly in competitive bid situations where buyers want findings quickly. Traditional diligence reviews can take days as lawyers work through data room documents and compile reports.

Under the arrangement, OpenAI is working with Ropes & Gray on custom agentic AI workflows for transactional due diligence. The tool is designed to follow the same steps the firm's lawyers use in a manual review, including identifying risks, flagging exceptions, and surfacing issues earlier in the process.

Rather than replacing legal analysis, the system is positioned as a way to reduce the time spent assembling findings. That could leave lawyers with more time to assess risk, test deal structures, and advise clients on execution.

The development reflects a broader push by major law firms to apply generative AI to labor-intensive legal work while keeping lawyers in control of final judgments. Transactional due diligence has become one of the clearest testing grounds because it involves large volumes of documents, repeated review steps, and strict timelines.

Julie Jones, Chair of Ropes & Gray, described the project as part of that shift.

“Our clients rely on us for judgment on the deals, disputes, and regulatory challenges that define their industries. With OpenAI, we are bringing frontier AI to the most time-intensive legal work, starting with transactional due diligence. Our goal is to put our lawyers' insight and experience to work earlier in the process, at greater speed and depth, so our clients get faster execution, sharper analysis, and the industry-leading counsel they expect from Ropes & Gray,” said Julie Jones, Chair of Ropes & Gray.

Broader AI plan

The OpenAI collaboration sits within a wider AI strategy based on using multiple tools rather than relying on a single provider. The firm describes that approach as a multi-tool architecture combining different AI products with lawyers trained to use them.

The OpenAI work appears to be one part of a broader effort to embed AI into legal workflows across the business. Law firms have been under pressure to show clients they can use automation to improve turnaround times without weakening standards of review, confidentiality, or professional accountability.

In this case, attorney oversight is built into every stage of the process. All AI deployments operate within a security framework intended to protect client privacy and maintain consistency in the review process.

The announcement points to an emerging model in which legal advisers try to codify parts of their internal working methods into software while keeping interpretation and advice in the hands of practitioners. For transactional teams, the appeal is less about fully automating due diligence than reducing the time needed to move from document review to client advice.

OpenAI has been expanding its work with professional services groups that want tailored systems rather than general consumer tools. For law firms, that typically means adapting AI models to internal processes, approval structures, and data controls suited to legal practice.

Ropes & Gray said the new diligence system is intended to be repeatable and reliable because it is built around the firm's own review methodology. The emphasis on issue-level reporting suggests a focus on producing structured outputs that lawyers can assess and refine, rather than simply generating broad summaries of data room content.

The firm did not disclose financial terms for the collaboration or say when the tool would be rolled out more widely to clients. It described the OpenAI work as a milestone in its broader technology strategy and said the model was built to scale.

Every AI deployment at Ropes & Gray operates within an enterprise-grade security framework, with attorney oversight embedded at every stage.