Over the last eighteen months, the concept of an agent has evolved in real time. Early on, it was largely a rebranding of workflow automation: deterministic pipelines with a language model somewhere in the loop. Useful, but not qualitatively different from what came before.

At 8VC, we invest in technologies that transform antiquated processes in old-line industries. Law is one of the most entrenched. For decades, it resisted the modernization that swept through nearly every other corner of the private sector.