Relativity has unveiled claiR, a conversational AI interface allowing lawyers to ask plain-language questions across an entire RelativityOne matter and receive cited answers.
The product is designed to give legal professionals direct access to matter data, bypassing the technical teams that have traditionally been required to surface information.
Relativity CEO Phil Saunders described the launch as a fundamental shift in how lawyers engage with legal data, saying the tool puts the full richness of a matter’s data directly in lawyers’ hands.
“Conversational AI is now how people everywhere expect to work, and with claiR, for the first time, the full richness of a matter’s data is directly in lawyers’ hands, rather than something they wait on technical legal data teams to surface,” Saunders said.
Despite the announcement, claiR will not be generally available until sometime early next year, with Relativity launching it first through its Advanced Access pre-release programme.
Three firms have been selected as the earliest testers: A&O Shearman, Foley & Lardner, and K&L Gates, giving Relativity early feedback from major legal practices.
claiR builds on the foundation of aiR Assist, a conversational tool made generally available at RelFest London in June 2026, but extends it significantly beyond indexed document sets.
While aiR Assist works against indexes built from document sets within a workspace, claiR reasons across the complete matter record, including metadata and the connections among documents.
A key differentiator is that claiR operates entirely within data already stored in RelativityOne, removing the need to move sensitive material into a separate AI environment.
Chris Brown, who became president of Relativity in July, said: “claiR doesn’t replace legal judgment, it gives lawyers more complete access to the facts and insights that judgment depends on. Nothing is exported or sampled, the answer comes from the record itself, right where the data lives.”
This approach addresses security and defensibility concerns that arise when competitors require matter data to be ingested into external tools, a process many firms have resisted.
Relativity expects to include claiR within RelativityOne’s integrated pricing at no additional cost once it reaches general availability, consistent with how it has handled other aiR suite products.
Calum Burnett, partner and global co-head of L&I at A&O Shearman, said claiR “provides powerful, auditable AI analysis to help our lawyers in their day-to-day work.”
David Simon, a Foley & Lardner litigation partner and member of the firm’s AI Steering Committee, said the tool’s value lies in getting to the facts faster and identifying issues sooner, calling it “a practical way to use conversational AI within our existing legal workflows.”
Julie Anne Halter, Seattle office managing partner at K&L Gates, said claiR has the potential to further revolutionise e-discovery for large volumes of data.
The claiR announcement sits within a broader push by Relativity to expand beyond its e-discovery roots and capture more of the full litigation lifecycle.
The company shipped aiR for Case Strategy in January, made aiR Assist generally available in June, and acquired document automation company Gavel the same month to extend its platform into Microsoft Word.
Relativity has also extended Model Context Protocol integrations for administrative work and continued investing in early-stage legal technology through its Rel Labs arm.
With claiR and Gavel in particular, Relativity is clearly targeting the practising lawyer directly, rather than solely the litigation support professionals who have historically formed its core user base.
Relativity says it will share more about its product roadmap at RelFest Chicago, scheduled for 29 September to 1 October.