Incredible innovations: rethinking business with legal at the table

The C-suite is shifting to a transformation-led model

In-house legal teams have fought hard to have a stronger voice in corporate decision-making, and most have made considerable progress.

In our January 2026 survey of in-house lawyers, almost half said legal leaders in their organisation advise on a wide range of board-level decisions. A further quarter said they have some influence on key decisions.

A small minority said legal is called on only when needed, when something goes wrong, or that they have very little influence.

The growing influence of legal leaders is part of a wider shift in the role of the Chief Legal Officer. The 2025 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey says the CLO role continues to expand beyond traditional legal counsel into broader strategic leadership, driven by regulatory complexity, geopolitical uncertainty and rapid technological change.

Yet when asked how others in their organisation would describe them, the picture was mixed. Around half of in-house lawyers described their team positively: commercially minded and collaborative, practical and responsive, or strategic business partners.

Yet a significant proportion used more constrained language. Almost half (47%) of in-house lawyers described their team as “overstretched”, “cautious”, “siloed” or “hard to access”.

The influence of many legal leaders is real but conditional, says Fractional General Counsel, Natalie Salunke.

"Legal can shape and reframe decisions at board level, particularly on risk, governance and structure, but rarely owns outcomes. Its impact depends heavily on credibility, commercial fluency and whether the GC is brought in early enough to influence rather than react."

Legal has more influence than ever, but many teams are still operating with the capacity, tools and structures of a more reactive era.

Reading the new C-suite

Executive leadership is no longer organised only around familiar functions. CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CIOs, CTOs and CDOs are increasingly accountable for transformation, innovation, resilience and value creation.

Deloitte’s 2025 Chief Transformation Officer study says transformation is now “prominent and central to the executive agenda”, while Robert Half’s Towards the C-Suite 2035 report highlights rising demand for AI, transformation, sustainability and technology leadership.

For legal leaders, the opportunity is clear: understand each executive’s priorities and show how legal insight helps the business move faster, with greater confidence.

But in-house teams are already stretched by AI safeguards, contract automation, data privacy, regulation, digital projects and rising routine work. Without the right infrastructure, legal teams could easily be seen as important but slow, overstretched or hard to access.

The CEO needs trusted reinvention

The modern CEO is trying to hold several transformations together at once: AI, productivity, operating model redesign, customer experience, sustainability, workforce change and investor confidence. Legal is well placed to help CEOs connect ambition with execution by understanding where commercial ideas hit contractual limits, where data use becomes sensitive, where reputation can be damaged and where regulation is moving.

The CFO needs confidence in the model

AI, automation, sustainability and new operating models all require investment, but capital only flows when the case is credible. Legal can help CFOs test what sits beneath the numbers. Data rights, liability, insurance, IP ownership and regulatory exposure can all affect whether a new model is commercially viable.

The COO needs operating models that can survive reality

COOs are redesigning how businesses operate, from automation and supply chains to workforce change and customer service. Legal issues sit underneath: fairness, escalation, auditability, sanctions, resilience, modern slavery and accountability. Early legal input helps build operating models that are faster, safer and more scalable.

Technology leaders need legal insight earlier

Technology is now central to competition. CIOs, CTOs and CDOs are shaping AI, data, platforms, cyber resilience and customer experience. As software is built for autonomous systems, legal needs to challenge assumptions early. Data provenance, ownership, consent, AI training, outputs and accountability must be clear before momentum becomes risk.

AI has already transformed entire departments, business models and job functions, and it will only continue to gather pace. Right now, the internet is being rebuilt to work for AI agents, which currently accounts for 31% of all HTTP traffic. In the future, software will be built purely for autonomous systems. The level of uncertainty is off the charts! Legal leaders need enough fluency to challenge assumptions and shape decisions early.

Reframing uncertainty is where legal can add value

Innovation often begins with a simple reframing. Wise reframed international money transfer as a transparency problem. Spotify reframed piracy as unmet demand for convenient legal access. Too Good To Go reframed surplus food as a marketplace opportunity. Ocado reframed grocery as a logistics and technology challenge, not just a retail one.

The best legal leaders help their businesses create new opportunities. This could mean anything from identifying where regulation is moving, to highlighting where customer trust is fragile, or suggesting where governance can become a market differentiator.

Regulation can reveal opportunity

Regulation is often treated as a constraint, but it can also be a signal to show where expectations are moving. Legal teams that understand these signals can help the business act earlier.

Some examples:

• A new AI governance requirement may create demand for assurance tools.
• A new sustainability standard may reward businesses with stronger evidence.
• A new consumer protection rule may make transparency a competitive advantage.

Trading on trust

Many modern innovations are now competing on trust as much as they are price, speed or time savings. Customers want confidence in the output, system, data use and the company behind it.

Legal leaders can help build that confidence into the model from the start through clearer consent, better licensing, stronger audit trails, transparent terms, safer customer journeys and credible claims. Done well, this makes innovation more investable, more defensible and easier to scale.

Legal can unlock data opportunities

Data-led innovation often stalls because organisations do not understand what they can do with the data they already hold.

Legal can clarify the boundaries and help identify safe routes to value. This could result in better consent models, data sharing agreements, anonymisation, commercial licensing, retention frameworks and AI training governance.

Legal can design scalable partnerships

Many of the most interesting innovations are through partnerships, which need legal design. Customer ownership, data control, liability, regulatory responsibility, IP rights and cross-border expansion all need to be resolved before a model can scale with confidence.

Established businesses can reinvent too

Innovation is not only about start-ups. Some of the most interesting changes happen when established businesses rethink what they already have.

They may have brand, data, customer relationships, infrastructure, capital, regulatory experience or operational depth. The challenge is seeing those assets differently.

Legal leaders can help identify where existing capabilities can become new products, services or platforms.

Moving from influence to impact

The legal function is still being held back by the same old problems: heavy workloads, fragmented data, inconsistent processes and underdeveloped tools, to name but a few.

If legal wants to become a true business model partner, it needs an operating model that supports that ambition.

Checking data use and privacy in digital projects is currently a core strategic priority for just over 52% of teams, although only around one-third say it should be a priority going forward.

Similarly, managing regulatory risks in supply chains and automation is handled by just under 50% of teams, but only 29% say it should be a priority. This reflects how compliance work continues to dominate workloads and limit capacity for more strategic activity.

In-house lawyers showed far more enthusiasm to prioritise creating dashboards to track legal and risk issues. Around 40% say this should be a priority, but only 26% are currently doing it.

Another key priority is setting rules and safeguards for AI tools and products, with 39% wanting to focus on this and about 38% already doing so. This hints that AI governance is already embedded in legal teams’ roles but will become even more strategic.

Contract automation and digital templates are also a major focus, with 37% wanting to prioritise this and 33% currently doing so. Interest is particularly strong among senior leaders: just under 50% of General Counsel want to focus on automation, but only about 20% are currently doing so, suggesting automation is seen by leaders as a future transformation priority rather than a current operational activity.

Becoming the architects behind change

Legal leaders need to help distinguish between the risks that are unacceptable, manageable and worth taking because the opportunity is strategically important.

Yet this means being involved in discussions that shape a new innovation model while it is still being imagined to ensure it can survive contact with customers, regulators, counterparties and competitors.

It also means giving the business clearer routes to action: playbooks, templates, decision trees, escalation points, risk dashboards, AI policies, data use guidance, contract automation and product launch checklists.

Legal advice has more influence when it is connected directly to business outcomes.

• Regulatory risk becomes a question of launch timing, market access and customer trust.
• Unclear data rights become a question of whether the business can use the assets that underpin the AI model, product strategy or revenue case.
• A broad indemnity becomes a question of whether the organisation is accepting exposure it cannot control, price or justify.

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A breakthrough idea may begin with creativity, but it scales through trust, which is why legal belongs at the table while the model is still being imagined.

Turning risk into opportunity

In-house legal teams need to convert their growing voice into earlier intervention, better visibility and more confident decision-making across the organisation.

That will depend on more than a seat at the table. It will require the time, tools and trust to move beyond managing risk in hindsight and start shaping strategy in real time.

The teams that succeed will not simply be those closest to the board. They will be those able to turn legal insight into a clearer operating advantage for the business.

Relying on AI to support legal research, summarisation, contract review, drafting, knowledge management and matter triage can help reduce the burden on legal teams.

As CEOs orchestrate transformation, CFOs allocate capital, COOs redesign operations, technology leaders build new capabilities and transformation leaders push for speed, legal leaders can provide something essential: the ability to connect bold ambition with trusted execution.