Reveal has been making headlines, and giving yours truly a wicked case of FOMO. For the last several months, Reveal has become the talk of the ediscovery town. For many people, myself included, the market-shaking moves and innovation coming out of this company has raised a few questions and tested many misconceptions. So, what better time than now to debunk some myths about Reveal than now?
From whether Brainspace is going the way of the dodo’s, to whether there is more to this not-so-new kid on the block than “just” AI, this blog takes a look at what the talk on the street about Reveal is and just how far off many of the misperceptions really are.
Myth: Reveal is a new kid on the block
Reality: Reveal was founded in 2009
While I would not disagree that Reveal has“the right stuff”, the organization is far from a New Kid on the Block with a story that dates back over a decade. Reveal was founded in 2009 by industry veteran Wendell Jisa. Brainspace, which Reveal recently acquired, dates back to 2005. In fact, the vast majority of service providers, in-house legal departments, and law firms alike have some piece of the Reveal ecosystem as a part of their internal stack or have used a portion of the ecosystem on a matter through a service provider.
Myth: Reveal only does AI
Reality: Reveal has an end-to-end AI-powered eDiscovery solution
With the motto of All-In on AI, and the best data visualization solution on the market, it is easy to see why some people might think that Reveal is primarily an artificial intelligence solution. While I will most certainly not dispute that Reveal AI and Brainspace are the industry leaders in legal AI today, there is most certainly more to the complete solution.
Reveal offers a comprehensive suite of solutions that support every step along the EDRM. With their 2019 acquisition of Mindseye, Reveal fortified the data processing component of their powerful end-to-end ediscovery solution. The Reveal ecosystem supports the EDRM from data ingestion and processing to ECA, Review, and of course, AI-powered analytics. The complete Reveal platform rivals any external ediscovery processing or document review platform on the market. The supercharged AI technology is simply the cherry on top.
Myth: Reveal is getting rid of Brainspace
Reality: Reveal is invested in keeping Brainspace's robust stand-alone solution
The 2021 combination of Reveal and Brainspace made waves across the entire discovery-verse. The bold move also raised some concern that it would mean the end of the road for an application the vast majority of the ediscovery market liked and relied upon. Thankfully, this simply is not the case. Brainspace is a software that we continue to invest heavily in and plan to continue developing, supporting and offering. The standalone Brainspace solution is an integral part of our ongoing development plan, and a key focus of our support team to ensure that the solution does not just remain available, but also continues to meet the standards of our clients and partners.
We DO plan to incorporate some of the most powerful aspects of Reveal AI (built on the unrivaled AI innovation of NexLP) to supercharge insights offered in Brainspace. This next-level unified solution will be more powerful and intuitive than anything else on the market, but it will not replace our standard Brainspace offering.
Myth: Reveal will compete with their channel like other legacy tech
Reality: Reveal doesn’t want to replace LSPs, we want to supercharge them
Reveal was founded by Wendell Jisa, the former founder of a legal service provider who understands at his core the challenges facing legal service providers today. That DNA is carried into our forthcoming channel partner program. We have a strategically designed channel program central to our business strategy, based on mutual benefit and not zero-sum. We have intentionally not built out a managed review offering or service program aimed at competing directly with service providers. We know who we are, and that is a leading legal technology software company, not an LSP!
It is no secret that some of the largest ediscovery software companies, both legacy and next-gen, have cannibalized some of the revenue streams that their service provider partners rely on. We believe this is wrong, and frighteningly shortsighted. The legal ediscovery pie is big enough for everyone to thrive.
We are fostering partnerships that offer better solutions and opportunities for all of our valued partners. We are building a partnership structure that enables everyone to thrive. And we are putting skin in the game to ensure that our partners are successful and profitable when working with us -- unike other legacy or next-gen ediscovery companies.
Myth: Reveal is just for litigation
Reality: Reveal & Brainspace are the gold standards for the largest, most complex investigations
One misconception that legitimately took me by surprise was that Reveal's suite of technology solutions are only for litigation. Namely, because in my past life at two big four consultancies, we relied extensively on Brainspace to uncover critical information in our most complex and high-profile investigations. From FCPA to second requests, insider threats to anti-money laundering, our teams relied on and turned to the investigation gold standard, Brainspace.
The advanced unsupervised visualizations (social network analysis, cluster wheel) and TAR 2.0 offered within the Reveal ecosystem is uniquely equipped to help investigators. Uncovering the who, what, when, where insights are so critical to managing the high stakes and tight timelines of large-scale investigations.
Myth: Reveal is for small cases
Reality: Reveal and Brainspace have been used on some of the most complex cases and chosen by top service providers
Because Reveal has recently become a breakout ediscovery solution and the top choice for practitioners looking for alternatives to clunky legacy tech, it is easy to see why some might lump us in with some of the other next-gen cloud-based ediscovery programs aimed at self-service or smaller matters.
The reality is the ecosystem of Reveal has the most adaptability and scalability of any tech solution on the market. Reveal is well suited for bet-the-farm cases with dozens of custodians in every timezone. It's also perfect for cases with data in more formats than meets the eye, and data volumes that might make your head swim.
The power of our active learning, visual analytics, and ai models allow practitioners with global data sets, ESI sources, and massive volumes to quickly understand the key players, concepts, and context of a matter in a way that more traditional tools simply cannot. While Reveal can most certainly support a small case, where we shine is on the messy and massive ones!
Myth: Reveal is just like all the other software companies
Reality: Our 'choose your own adventure' approach is unlike anything else on the market
I have to admit, that if you had asked me even a year ago about Reveal, I would probably have shrugged my shoulders and not had much to say. The acquisitions of Mindseye, NexLP, and Brainspace moved the needle in terms of how I perceived the functional capability of the Reveal ecosystem. At the core, Reveal's intent on empowering practitioners to choose their own ediscovery adventure that is the single biggest differentiator.
Whether you want a full cloud-based solution or something that can be deployed behind your firewall on-premise, something using all the bleeding-edge AI your heart could stand, or a more traditional processing and review platform, Reveal is your platform. If you wanted to go all-in on the Reveal ecosystem, or simply layer in portions of the ecosystem to augment your existing stack of tech, Reveal can again deliver a customized solution that meets your needs.
Rather than trying to make clients adhere to a one-size-fits-all approach, we adapt based on the myriad of factors facing practitioners today. Our team understands that the challenges, organizations, and the case portfolios of each client are different and require a unique and bespoke approach. So, rather than trying to make your program or case fit into our approach, we stay nimble and offer adaptable solutions that meet you where you are, evolving with you over time.
Myth: Buying NexLP and Brainspace doesn’t make sense
Reality: Reveal acquired NexLP and Brainspace so we could marry two robust and complementary AI technologies
This myth comes more in the form of a head scratch and a question, “why did Reveal buy both NexLP and Brainspace?” I think the confusion comes from practitioners lumping all ediscovery AI into a single monolith. The reality is that there is more nuance to ediscovery AI, and each company brought a unique strategic advantage to the Reveal ecosystem.
In looking at both companies, it is important to look at the strengths each possesses and the opportunities for leveling up. With Reveal AI (formerly known as NexLP) you have the most robust AI and contextual linguistic analytic tool on the market. NexLP also brought forward an unrivaled and easy-to-use AI Model Library that is changing the ediscovery game. With Brainspace, you have the hands-down leader in data visualization for ediscovery today.
In acquiring both the AI and data viz leaders on the market, Reveal has an opportunity to bring the best of each platform together into two separate but now more powerful solutions for our clients to choose from. The AI foundation of Reveal AI is being woven into the fabric of Brainspace’s visualizations and CMML as we speak. On the other side, we are leveling up the visual representations delivered in Reveal AI to amplify intuitiveness and user experience. The end result is two more powerful tools for clients to choose from depending on their needs.
Myth: Reveal is too expensive
Reality: Our all-in flexible pricing and powerful AI saves you big time
Early iterations of AI and even earlier pricing structures did carry a not insubstantial price tag. Legal AI delivered on the promise of substantial savings in terms of time and money, especially in terms of the cost for human review. However, practitioners sometimes faced pushback on the additional cost of adding AI to a matter.
Reveal decided to eliminate the barrier to using AI completely. We believe that AI can offer impactful insights and efficiency on cases of any size and so have baked AI into our all-in pricing to remove any barriers to using the leading tools to improve case costs and outcomes.
Reveal believes that cost should never be a factor in using the best tools to manage your ediscovery challenges and has deployed a pricing structure to reflect this. Practitioners no longer have to weigh the cost and benefits of using AI-powered solutions in their ediscovery and investigation matters and can simply reap the reward of more predictable, timely case insights.
To be continued…
I am only a few months into uncovering all there is to know about Reveal, so expect to see a part two down the road where I can bust more myths and reveal more about Reveal!
