We are LegalOn: Meet Gabor Melli, VP of Artificial Intelligence

LegalOn is excited to welcome our first Vice President of Artificial Intelligence, Gabor Melli, to the team! Gabor has decades of experience in AI, machine learning, and data science, and has spent his career building world-class consumer and enterprise products, at Sony PlayStation, OpenGov, and VigLink.

AI has the potential to be a transformative force multiplier for legal teams looking to become more efficient. However, for it to become a true partner to legal professionals, it must be applied with careful responsibility. With numerous research publications under his belt, Gabor brings a scientist’s mind – and scrutiny – to his work. As a technology veteran, Gabor knows how to meaningfully integrate AI to build real world tools and products.

Gabor shared with us how he’ll help scale LegalOn’s product by pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and his optimism for AI. 

Tell us about yourself and your experience in AI.

I have over 20 years of experience leading AI/ML engineering teams at global technology companies like Sony PlayStation, where I led the development of AI-based game and game content recommendation engines, and VigLink, where I pioneered their AI for intelligent in-text ad placement. In addition to my industry experience, I also have 20+ years as an AI researcher, with numerous publications focused on semi-supervised learning and natural language processing. I'm passionate about leveraging AI to solve complex real-world problems.

What drew you to the legal technology space, and LegalOn?

I was drawn to LegalOn because of the tremendous opportunity to transform legal workflows through AI. LegalOn has already made great strides in combining expert legal analysis with AI techniques like natural language processing to automate contract review. I'm excited to build on that foundation and further enhance LegalOn's AI capabilities.

I was drawn to LegalOn because of the tremendous opportunity to transform legal workflows through AI.

Legal has been one of the last holdouts to technology transformation. What opportunity does Generative AI provide in accelerating change?  

Generative AI offers enormous potential to accelerate and enhance legal workflows. As an example, By automating repetitive tasks like contract review and drafting, lawyers can focus on higher-value work. AI can also make legal services more accessible and affordable. My background as both a scientist and engineer will help push the boundaries of how generative AI can be applied in legal. We'll thoughtfully integrate it with human expertise to augment our users capabilities.

By automating repetitive tasks like contract review and drafting, lawyers can focus on higher-value work. AI can also make legal services more accessible and affordable.

What are some of the risks and challenges associated with Generative AI in legal workflows? How do we navigate those risks? What role can other AI techniques play?

Risks include potential biases in training data, maintaining security/privacy with sensitive legal data, and misuse of AI like chatbots providing incorrect legal advice. We must carefully validate systems, be transparent about limitations, keep humans in the loop, and focus AI on augmenting humans rather than replacing them. My research background in natural language processing and prediction systems will be invaluable in studying and mitigating AI risks.

What are some of your hobbies and personal interests? We’d love to know more about you.

Outside work, I enjoy world travel, cultural events and playing outdoors - currently with electric powered vehicles. I also help organize AI and ML events such as ACM’s KDD and CIKM conferences, and the TextGraphs workshop series.