After three packed days at Alternative Legal IT 2026, we came away with plenty of conversations to continue, valuable feedback to take forward and a real sense of where the UK legal sector is heading.
Most importantly, it was great to meet so many of our clients and prospects in person.
There is only so much you can get from emails and Teams calls. Having the opportunity to sit down face to face, hear about the challenges firms are experiencing and understand what they want from technology made the event particularly valuable for us.
And if there was one overriding message from the three days, it was clear: the UK legal industry is moving forward.
Moving beyond the AI conversation
AI was naturally a major theme throughout Alternative Legal IT, both in the sessions and in conversations around the event.
What was encouraging to see was how much the conversation has progressed.
For many firms, the question is no longer simply whether AI has a place within legal services. The focus is increasingly on where it can provide genuine value and how it can fit into the way legal professionals already work.
How can we reduce repetitive administration?
How can information captured during the working day be used more effectively?
How can we automate parts of a process without taking control away from the professional?
And how can different technologies and workflows work together rather than creating another disconnected system?
These were some of the conversations we found ourselves having throughout the event.
A lot of interest in Meeting Capture
We were delighted by the level of interest across the Diktamen platform, but Meeting Capture was a particular talking point.
That interest says a lot about where firms are heading.
Meetings and conversations contain huge amounts of valuable information, but professionals can still spend considerable time afterwards writing notes, producing summaries, creating documents and identifying the actions that need to happen next.
Meeting Capture provides an opportunity to change that.
By capturing a conversation and transforming it into structured, useful outputs, firms can reduce the work that happens after a meeting while still giving professionals the opportunity to review and control what is produced.
The conversations we had at Alternative Legal showed us that firms are increasingly thinking beyond individual pieces of technology. They are looking at the complete process and asking how they can work more efficiently from beginning to end.
One platform, multiple ways of working
That thinking fits closely with the direction we’re taking Diktamen.
Digital Dictation remains an important part of how many legal professionals work, but it doesn’t have to be the only way.
Some professionals may prefer traditional dictation. Others want to dictate directly into Speech Recognition. A client meeting may be better suited to Meeting Capture, while the actions that come from that conversation can feed into Task Management and wider workflows.
The objective isn’t to force everyone into one new way of working.
It’s to give firms and their people different ways to capture information and get work done, while maintaining the structure, security and control they need.
Great conversations, great sessions and plenty to take away
The sessions across the three days provided plenty of food for thought too.
From AI and automation to changing working practices, talent, leadership and the future structure of law firms, there was a strong sense that technology is increasingly connected to much wider conversations about how legal businesses operate.
For us, being able to hear those discussions and then speak directly with firms about their own experiences was incredibly useful.
We’d like to thank everyone who stopped by the Diktamen stand, whether it was for a demonstration, a quick question, to give us some feedback or simply to say hello.
Those conversations are one of the most valuable parts of attending events like Alternative Legal IT.
A little fun along the way
Of course, it wasn’t all presentations, AI and workflows.
A big thank you to our partner Quiss, who were also the main sponsor of Alternative Legal IT 2026.
Their live photo booth was a huge hit throughout the event and produced some brilliant results. We certainly weren’t expecting to leave Alternative Legal as superheroes!
Our associates at Jungle IT also brought some nostalgia and friendly competition with their retro arcade machine. It proved very difficult to walk past without stopping for a game.
Both added something different to the event and helped create the relaxed atmosphere that makes having conversations and meeting new people so much easier.
Until next time
Alternative Legal IT gave us three busy days of conversations, ideas, demonstrations and insights into where the industry is going next.
We came away encouraged by the appetite we’re seeing for technologies such as Meeting Capture, Speech Recognition, Task Management and intelligent workflows, but even more encouraged by the thinking behind it.
Firms aren’t adopting technology simply for the sake of having more technology.
They’re looking for practical ways to remove unnecessary administration, make better use of the information they already capture and give their people more time to focus on valuable work.
Thank you again to everyone who spent time with us, and to the organisers, speakers, Quiss, Jungle IT and everyone else who made Alternative Legal IT 2026 such an enjoyable event.
The UK legal industry is moving forward, and we’re excited to be part of what comes next.