In an executive feature published by OpenAI on November 11, 2026, Sam Nickless, Partner and Chief Executive Officer at Gilbert + Tobin, detailed the Australian corporate law firm's strategy for integrating artificial intelligence into its daily legal and administrative operations.
Gilbert + Tobin initially encouraged employees across the organization to experiment with AI tools within a strictly constrained environment that explicitly prohibited entering client data or confidential information. Following this exploratory phase, the firm expanded adoption by deploying ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Work, and Codex. Enterprise deployment was backed by Australian data residency, contractual protections, role-based access, and granular administrative controls.
According to Nickless, the firm is moving beyond basic assistance toward defined, multistep agentic workflows. Human personnel remain fully accountable for task definition, output review, and final deliverables. The firm's governance policy establishes that AI is an operational tool to assist human judgment, rather than a substitute for professional oversight.
Nickless noted that the primary objective of AI adoption is not headcount reduction or cost cutting, but enabling staff to spend more time on strategic, client-facing work, team coaching, and mentoring. Among specific internal applications, Nickless created a custom 'digital twin' GPT trained on his writing style, firm context, and prior feedback, allowing direct reports to refine their proposals before executive meetings. Additionally, Nickless utilized ChatGPT Work during an annual review process involving 120 partners. The system parsed spreadsheet data, updated individual files, compiled PDFs, and bundled completed documents in minutes at a reported cost of approximately $62, saving days of manual effort across multiple staff members.
Gilbert + Tobin operates as a corporate law firm with practices spanning capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, dispute resolution, and technology sectors.
