RainDance 2026 Speaker Preview
We’re excited to spotlight, Sumathi Pundit, Founder & CEO, Kaitongo, with this preview ahead of her session at LSSO RainDance 2026.
As AI compresses billable work, value shifts to those who engage clients earlier, surface insight faster, and become indispensable before a matter even exists. For revenue teams, this isn’t a tech conversation. It’s a control-of-relationship conversation.
Everywhere you look in legal, the conversation centers on AI’s impact on the practice of law. Will it reshape hiring? Shift pricing from task-based to outcome-based? Redefine leverage models?
These are important questions. But they are not the most consequential ones.
AI’s greatest impact will be on the lawyer-client engagement paradigm: what work stays in-house, what is outsourced, and who controls the relationship. That shift has profound implications for how lawyers originate work and how firms protect and expand client relationships.
Revenue teams — business development, marketing, competitive intelligence, and revenue management — are not simply being supported by AI. They are being redefined by it.
While much of the industry debates drafting and review efficiencies, the firms gaining real advantage are engaging clients earlier and strengthening relationships before a matter arises. They are positioning themselves as indispensable, sector-informed advisors. That shift is accelerating faster than many leaders realize.
When production work becomes automated, value migrates to those who control the client relationship. Legal has reached that inflection point. As AI compresses billable work that once anchored engagement, the attorneys who thrive will not be those who execute tasks fastest.
They will be the advisors clients call before a problem fully forms.
Becoming a trusted advisor is no longer aspirational. It is a survival requirement. Firms that fail to institutionalize this capability will be increasingly commoditized. Meanwhile, AI is lowering structural barriers, giving smaller firms the tools to compete in ways previously out of reach.
The mandate is clear: every lawyer must be equipped to deepen relationships and generate opportunity — not just senior partners with legacy networks. When deployed effectively, AI enables coordination, insight, and scale that were previously impossible.
If relationship ownership defines value, the practical question becomes: how do firms achieve that at scale? Most already have the raw materials — but not the infrastructure.
Tech stacks built on isolated, single-purpose point solutions are giving way to integrated data environments that unify relationship signals, market intelligence, client activity, and competitive context into actionable insight.
Leading professional services organizations are increasingly deploying agentic systems to manage complex workflows. In client development, that means surfacing timely, relevant intelligence that enables proactive outreach — engaging clients before needs are formally articulated.
This is where knowledge management and business development converge. Firms hold deep institutional knowledge about their clients, sectors, and prior matters. But knowledge alone does not create growth. It must be structured, connected to external signals, and operationalized.
When internal expertise (“what we know”) is integrated with external market intelligence (“what clients care about”), firms move from reactive information sharing to coordinated, strategic client engagement.
That is where competitive advantage now lives.
Sumanthi Pundit is the Founder and CEO of Kaitongo. A serial entrepreneur with a background in engineering and an MBA from Ivey Business School, Sumathi brings extensive experience in business intelligence, including two ventures in the legal sector. Having previously been an early team member at Evalueserve, a global research and insights firm that provided insights and analytics services to a range of professional services firms such as McKinsey, PwC, KPMG, Freshfields and many others, she launched Kaitongo to help attorneys, business development, and marketing professionals strengthen client relationships through AI-powered insights.