Introduction

Collaboration data has become a primary record of how
work gets done.

Decisions are made in Slack and Microsoft Teams,
negotiations unfold over Zoom, and legal risk often appears
first in fast-moving chat environments rather than in formal
documents or email.

This pulse check explores how legal professionals are
managing that reality in 2026.

The findings suggest that confidence is rising, and many
teams believe they can respond effectively when
collaboration data is required for legal, regulatory, or
investigative purposes. At the same time, the results point to
persistent gaps in preservation coverage, contextual integrity,
and operational coordination that continue to undermine
defensibility.

The analysis draws on an end-of-year 2025 survey of more
than 120 legal professionals across North America,
predominantly from large enterprises.

Most respondents work at organizations with more than
10 ,000 employees and over $10 billion in annual revenue, with
additional representation from companies in the $1 billion to
$10 billion range. The findings reflect how collaboration data is
managed in complex, enterprise-scale environments.

Respondents include a combination of in-house legal teams
and legal service providers across industries where
collaboration platforms are core to business operations, such
as technology, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing,
and professional services.

Together, these perspectives offer a grounded view of how
collaboration data is managed in practice today and where
legal teams continue to face operational and defensibility
challenges as platforms and data volumes grow.

The collaboration ecosystem is broad, and preservation does not match usage

The collaboration ecosystem is broad, and preservation does not match usage.

Most organizations now operate across multiple collaboration platforms at the same time. Recent technology adoption data shows that Microsoft Teams remains the most prevalent internal collaboration platform, but it is rarely the only one in use.

Alongside Teams, Slack and Google-based collaboration tools are in active use across many organizations, often reflecting ongoing platform transitions rather than static tool stacks.

In several cases, newer adoption of Slack and Google Workspace appears to have replaced earlier Microsoft-centric channels, resulting in parallel or hybrid collaboration ecosystems.

This complexity is reinforced by how collaboration is evolving.

Respondents report meaningful use of Slack, Google Chat, Webex, WhatsApp, Signal, Bloomberg Chat, and email, often in parallel. Based on our experience working with customers across sectors, enterprise collaboration is increasingly extending beyond organizational boundaries.

Features such as Slack Connect and Microsoft Teams shared channels enable direct collaboration with customers, vendors, and partners inside core enterprise platforms. As a result, externally facing communication is now embedded within primary collaboration tools, not separated from them.

Despite widespread adoption, high usage does not consistently translate into preservation for legal, regulatory, or investigative purposes. Only a small portion of Teams users report preserving that data. Email is preserved more frequently than most collaboration tools, but still by fewer than half of respondents, while several actively used external platforms show no formal preservation process at all.

When preservation does not align with how people actually communicate, legal readiness becomes situational. It depends on which platform was used rather than the importance or risk of the conversation itself.

In-house legal teams consistently report operating across multiple collaboration channels without centralized visibility into retention or legal hold coverage. Across both datasets, collaboration data is clearly business critical, but preservation practices continue to lag behind real-world usage.

^{Figure 1: Top 3 collaboration tools adopted among surveyed companies since 2024}

Ownership is shared, but coordination remains difficult

Responsibility for collaboration data preservation is typically distributed across multiple functions.

In the survey, respondents most often identified IT or records management as the primary owner. Legal or legal operations teams were the next most frequently cited, and more than a quarter of respondents reported that responsibility is formally shared across departments rather than owned by a single function.

This shared ownership model reflects growing maturity in how organizations approach collaboration data.

Respondents in the survey consistently recognized that collaboration data sits at the intersection of infrastructure, legal risk, and defensibility, and that no single team can manage it effectively in isolation.

However, the same respondents also made clear that shared responsibility does not automatically translate into smooth execution.

In the survey, respondents pointed to several operational challenges that persist despite shared ownership, including:

• Misaligned or disconnected tooling across legal, IT, and records teams
• Unclear accountability when production deadlines tighten
• Gaps between policy ownership and day-to-day operational execution

Many in-house legal teams reported uncertainty about who ultimately drives action when collaboration data must be preserved, collected, or produced under pressure. In practice, this often results in delays, manual workarounds, or inconsistent handling across platforms.

^{Figure 2: Who owns the responsibility for managing and preserving collaboration data in the organization? (data displayed in %)}

Confidence is high, but it sits on top of context gaps

Legal professionals generally feel confident in their ability to produce collaboration data when needed.

Most survey respondents express confidence in their ability to produce collaboration data when required:

• A majority report being fully confident in their processes.
• Others describe being somewhat confident, noting that most, but not all, required data is preserved.
• Only a small minority express low confidence or report that they have not yet faced a request.

This confidence is meaningful, but it needs to be viewed alongside preservation realities. Only a third of respondents can confirm that they preserve full conversational context across all platforms.

In practice, confidence may reflect success on core systems rather than comprehensive readiness across the entire collaboration landscape.

Many in-house legal teams report confidence in their ability to respond to requests while also relying on manual workflows, multiple vendors, or partial exports. Therefore, the findings suggest that confidence often reflects past experience rather than consistent, end-to-end defensibility.

Scale, fragmentation, and export quality dominate the pain map for 2026

What stands out most in the survey responses is the volume of collaboration data legal teams are now expected to manage.

This is no longer a matter of a handful of internal channels. Organizations are dealing with millions of messages spread across public channels, private conversations, direct messages, and a growing number of third-party and shared channels.

Conversations routinely involve internal teams alongside customers, vendors, and partners, often within the same platform and sometimes within the same thread. As usage expands, so does fragmentation. Data is dispersed across platforms, workspaces, and access models, making it difficult to maintain a complete and defensible record.

To cope with this scale, many teams rely on time-boxed or 24-hour exports that flatten chat data into document-style files for ingestion into review platforms. This approach enables basic searching, but it introduces a structural limitation. Once the data is removed from its native environment, it becomes difficult to

reconstruct threads, recover missing replies or edits, or understand reactions and conversational tone. In practice, teams often cannot return to the source system to fill in what is missing.

This reflects a broader industry mismatch. Collaboration data is still being handled as if it were email or static documents, even though it behaves very differently. Conversations are informal and shorthand-driven. Meaning is often conveyed through emojis, abbreviations, and reactions as much as through text. When that structure is stripped away, review becomes slower and conclusions less reliable.

In this context, AI is now essential. Keyword search alone struggles with conversational language and fragmented exports. AI is better suited to interpret chat-native data at scale, particularly where context, tone, and behavior matter. As both survey responses and customer experience make clear, the combination of high volume, fragmentation, and flat exports is now the primary constraint on defensible collaboration data workflows.

^{Figure 4: What are your top challenges in managing collaboration data at scale?}

Many teams still lack visibility into data volume

A majority of respondents cannot estimate how much collaboration data they manage on a monthly basis.

Among those who can, reported volumes range from fewer than 100,000 messages to more than one million.

Without a clear understanding of scale, teams struggle to plan capacity, forecast cost, or assess whether preservation practices are keeping pace with growth.

^{Figure 5: Approximately how much collaboration data does your organization manage on a monthly basis (across Slack, Teams, Zoom, etc.)? (data displayed in %)}

Context preservation is the most important defensibility gap

Preserving the full context of collaboration data is critical to making that data defensible. This includes:

• Edits and deletions
• Timestamps and message order
• Threads and reply structures
• Reactions and emojis
• Attachments and participant changes
• External channels and guests

Only about a third of respondents confirm that their systems preserve full context across all platforms. Others preserve full context only in select environments, capture only basic message text, or are unsure what their systems retain.

This uncertainty is significant. In real investigations, missing context can change meaning, distort timelines, and weaken conclusions. Treating collaboration data as simple text removes the signals that give it evidentiary value.

^{Figure 6: Does your current system preserve the full context of collaboration data (e.g., timestamps, threads, deletions, reactions, attachments, channels with external parties)? (data displayed in %)}

AI adoption is underway, and is focused on practical workflows

AI is already part of collaboration data workflows for many teams:

• Search, tagging, and review acceleration are the most common uses;
• Communication surveillance and compliance monitoring follow closely;
• A smaller but meaningful group applies AI to legal hold and early case assessment;

Many organizations that are not yet using AI are actively evaluating it. In-house legal teams are actively adopting AI where it reduces manual effort, improves targeting, and supports defensible outcomes. Very few report having no plans to adopt AI at all.

^{Figure 7: Is your organization currently using AI-powered tools to reduce or target collaboration data (in-house, prior to sending to outside counsel or legal service providers)? (Select all that apply)}

Expectations for AI are specific and pragmatic

When asked what matters most in AI-powered collaboration data tools, respondents prioritized:

• Smart search that goes beyond keywords
• Scalable processing and high-quality exports
• AI-generated summaries that surface key players and timelines
• Full thread and context preservation
• Visibility into edited or deleted messages
• Automated workflows and alerts for higher-risk activity.

These priorities reflect a shift away from forcing chat data into legacy review models. Legal teams want tools that understand how people actually communicate and help them work faster without sacrificing accuracy or defensibility.

^{Figure 8: What are the most important features you expect from an AI-powered collaboration data tool? (Select up to 3)}

External collaboration is common, but preservation is behind

^{Figure 9: Does your organization communicate with external companies through collaboration tools (e.g., Slack Connect, Teams, email integrations, etc.)? If so, do you have a process to ensure external data is preserved in the same way as internal data? (data displayed in %)}

As shared channels, guest access, and cross-organization workspaces become more common, unclear preservation practices increasingly represent structural blind spots rather than temporary gaps.

Investment appetite is cautious, even as needs rise

Despite clear operational challenges, investment intent remains mixed:

• Only a small share of respondents are very likely to invest in new technology
• Many are unsure or somewhat unlikely to invest in the near term

^{Figure 10: In the next 12–18 months, how likely is your organization to invest in new technology to manage collaboration data? (data displayed in %)}

In-house legal teams are willing to invest when tools clearly improve defensibility, reduce review time, or simplify cross-platform workflows. Without a clear operational return, investment decisions tend to stall.

The 2026 playbook for high performing legal teams

Our survey results point to a clear set of next steps. These map directly to what respondents said is working and what is breaking.

Legal teams need to align preservation with real platform usage. The usage preservation mismatch across Teams, Zoom, Google Chat, and email shows that coverage is still selective. A quarterly platform audit is a practical way to stay ahead of drift.

Ownership needs a strong RACI, even when responsibility is shared. Shared models are common, but disconnected tools remain a top challenge. Legal should be accountable for defensibility requirements. IT and records should be responsible for execution. Compliance and security should be consulted on surveillance and policy. That structure reduces ambiguity under time pressure.

Legal teams should preserve full context by default. Only a third of respondents can say they do this across platforms. Context is what makes chat evidence usable; it should not depend on case type or platform.

Legal teams should conduct early case assessment and address export quality issues before sending collaboration data into review. Incomplete or flat exports are still a top challenge. If threads, edits, reactions, or attachments are missing, review will be slower and conclusions will be weaker.

Legal teams should adopt AI as a matter of need. Respondents want smart search, summaries, and scalable exports. Those are the functions that cut review time without cutting corners. They also reflect workflows already in use for surveillance and early case assessment. When AI is tuned to collaboration formats, it becomes a defensibility accelerator.

Legal teams should treat external collaboration as first class evidence. Half of respondents either have no external preservation process or are still building one. External channels should inherit internal retention and legal hold logic so that the record stays consistent.

Finally, legal teams should build scale visibility. Most respondents cannot estimate monthly message volume. Even a rough baseline makes it easier to size tooling, forecast review cost, and validate that preservation is keeping up.

What this pulse check says about 2026

Legal teams are engaging seriously with collaboration data. Confidence is rising, AI adoption is focused on practical outcomes, and shared ownership models are becoming more common.

At the same time, preservation coverage remains uneven. Context is not consistently captured. Export quality continues to create avoidable downstream cost. Tooling fragmentation still slows response when it matters most.

In 2026, the teams best positioned to respond with confidence will be those that treat collaboration data as a connected ecosystem rather than a collection of point solutions. Aligning preservation with real usage, preserving context by default, and applying AI in ways that reflect how people actually communicate will increasingly define defensibility as collaboration data volumes and complexity continue to grow.