Now the company has released the next generation of Archie AI, a major overhaul that moves Archie from a one-shot RAG approach to agentic, multi-step reasoning; makes it more accessible by embedding it directly into matters, Microsoft Word and Outlook; gives it access to more of their Smokeball data; and adds purpose-built apps for workflows such as chronologies, audio transcription and bank-statement analysis.<\/p>\n
In a recent demonstration for me, Smokeball founder and CEO Hunter Steele<\/a> walked through the new release and shared usage data on how the product has fared since its 2024 launch, including what he described as exponential growth in usage since the company shipped the first wave of these updates earlier this year.<\/p>\n \u201cAI shouldn\u2019t feel like a separate tool lawyers have to learn or adapt to; it should work the way they already do,\u201d Steele said in the company\u2019s announcement of this update. \u201cWith Archie: Next Generation, we\u2019ve embedded powerful, agentic AI directly into the core of legal workflows, so firms can move faster, work more accurately, and stay focused on what matters most.\u201d<\/p>\n Smokeball, founded in 2012 and with offices in Chicago, Sydney and London, sells cloud-based practice management software to small and mid-sized law firms in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Most of its customer base is firms of two to 30 people.<\/p>\n Before demonstrating the product, Steele shared numbers on Archie\u2019s adoption over its first two years \u2014 data the company used to guide development of its next-gen product.<\/p>\n When Smokeball first began talking about AI two years ago, he said, ABA survey data put AI use among lawyers in its market at roughly 20% to 30%, counting even those who had merely signed up for free ChatGPT accounts.<\/p>\n Smokeball\u2019s survey of its own clients at the end of 2025 found 81% using AI, a figure Steele believes is even higher today.<\/p>\n Over those two years, Steele said, users have typed more than 2.5 million prompts into Archie, and the product now has more than 20,000 daily users.<\/p>\n Steele also shared data on what those users are doing with the tool. About 49% of prompts involve finding, reviewing or summarizing information within a matter \u2013 what he described as \u201cneedle in the haystack type stuff.\u201d A nearly equal share involves drafting or redrafting documents, emails and memos. Only a small fraction involves legal research questions.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re kind of finding in our small space is that they\u2019re loving using AI to just get more work done and be more efficient,\u201d Steele said. \u201cWhen it comes to legal research, they\u2019re OK \u2013 probably scared is probably the word I would use, but also happy enough doing what they\u2019re doing because they see so much value everywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n Steele said the most common first prompt a new user types is simply \u201csummarize this matter.\u201d That observation drove the company to build a prompt library, where users can save their own prompts, share them within their firm, or use prompts Smokeball publishes.<\/p>\n About 40% of all prompts now come from saved templates rather than being typed ad hoc, he said. An \u201cimprove prompt\u201d button, which uses AI to restructure a user\u2019s prompt into a more detailed one, is now used on roughly 20% of prompts.<\/p>\n Steele said Smokeball is also evolving prompts into more structured templates that can ask for inputs, run a sequence of prompts, and produce more consistent outputs \u2013 an approach he compared to bringing document-automation concepts such as fields, values and logic into prompt design.<\/p>\n After Smokeball released the first wave of its next-generation updates in late February and early March this year, usage took off, Steele said. Since January 2026, prompt volume has grown over 241%, is now 10.4 times what it was at launch, and is growing 28% month over month.<\/p>\n \u201cThere isn\u2019t one single one that was the golden arrow,\u201d Steele said of the changes driving the growth. \u201cI think it\u2019s a mix of all of them \u2013 putting it where they want to be, making the models and the agents better, and then introducing it into Word and Outlook.\u201d<\/p>\n At the core of the new release is what Smokeball describes as a foundational shift from a one-shot retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) approach to an agentic architecture, in which Archie reasons through a request in multiple steps, retrieves deeper matter context, reassesses its work, and shows the user the steps it took.<\/p>\n \u201cEarly days, [we were] using one-shot RAG, which is basically what was great about AI a year ago and not so great today,\u201d Steele said. \u201cThe problem with that is, as we know, lawyers don\u2019t normally work one step at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n Alongside the new architecture, Smokeball expanded the data Archie can access. Where the assistant originally worked from client details and ingested documents, it now has access to every piece of data for a matter that the system contains \u2013 tasks, calendar events, billing, trust balances, outstanding invoices, memos and file notes.<\/p>\n The agent can also take actions such as creating tasks, memos and calendar events, with user approval.<\/p>\n Users can choose which underlying large language model powers Archie, with options including OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT, Anthropic\u2019s Claude and Google\u2019s Gemini. The current default is GPT-5.2, Steele said, though the company runs evaluations across models and would change the default if another proved substantially better. He noted that a growing number of users are opting to switch to Claude models.<\/p>\n In the demonstration, using a mock divorce matter, Steele asked Archie what a marital settlement agreement said about closing joint accounts and whether the opposing party had complied. The agent broke the request into steps \u2013 searching the matter\u2019s documents, reading the settlement agreement, reviewing correspondence \u2013 and returned an answer citing the relevant MSA provision and the emails showing noncompliance, with its reasoning steps visible to the user.<\/p>\n In an estate-planning matter, Steele showed how Archie could easily compare a couple\u2019s estate plans side by side and identify differences in successor designations across all documents. Steele said the prior RAG-based approach would likely have struggled with that task because it required gathering and comparing multiple documents step by step.<\/p>\n A central theme of the release is putting Archie where lawyers already work rather than in a separate tab.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re kind of like, we need it more,\u201d Steele said of user feedback. \u201cEvery time we draft an email, we want it to be there. Every time we\u2019re in Word, we want Archie to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n This new version aims to accomplish that in three ways:<\/p>\n The matter widget proactively analyzes matters and surfaces actionable next steps.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Archie Matter Widget.<\/strong> Archie now appears as a widget on each matter\u2019s home page. Rather than presenting a blank prompt box, the widget analyzes the matter\u2019s recent documents, emails, tasks and calendar events and proactively identifies suggested actions as clickable tiles. These might include, for example, transcribing a phone call saved to the matter, drafting a follow-up email to a client about an outstanding financial disclosure, or analyzing a draft agreement for missing terms. In the demo, the suggestions were specific to the matter\u2019s actual contents, referencing files and correspondence by name. Clicking a tile writes and executes the prompt automatically.<\/p>\n Lawyers can use Archie directly within Word to draft, edit and analyze documents.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Archie for Word.<\/strong> A new Word add-in gives Archie its own toolbar inside Microsoft Word, alongside Smokeball\u2019s longstanding document automation toolbar. The add-in automatically knows which matter a document belongs to and offers suggestions specific to that document. In the demo, working in a pour-over will, Steele asked who would care for the client\u2019s children if the client died. Archie answered and, on request, navigated directly to the guardianship provision in the document. When Steele told Archie the client wanted to substitute a different guardian, the assistant located the provision and made the change as a redline using Word\u2019s native track changes, which the user can then accept or reject.<\/p>\n The Word add-in also supports structured document reviews using playbooks, flagging issues as passing, failing or warranting a warning. In the demo, an 11-rule pour-over will playbook flagged concerns with the document\u2019s execution attestation and self-proving affidavit sections. Playbook-style review has been a focus of AI tools aimed at large-firm contract work, Steele acknowledged, but Smokeball is building playbooks down to the practice-area level for its small-firm market, where he said estate planning has emerged as an early use case. The Word add-in additionally includes access to the prompt library and an initial app for translating selected text.<\/p>\n Archie in Outlook.<\/strong> An Outlook add-in brings Archie into the email workflow, with thread summarization, drafting and refinement with matter context, and AI-suggested replies. Throughout the demo, drafts generated in Archie could be sent to Outlook with one click, pre-addressed and with a subject line, or to Word as a letter on the firm\u2019s letterhead with the subject line populated by Smokeball\u2019s existing document automation.<\/p>\n One of the more surprising lessons of Archie\u2019s first two years, Steele said, was how far beyond simple drafting and summarization users tried to push it. They would ask it, for example, to summarize 43 sets of medical records, analyze spending across 15 bank statements, or build full chronologies.<\/p>\n \u201cArchie wasn\u2019t necessarily built for that, to be honest,\u201d he said, and results were mixed.<\/p>\n The company responded with Archie Apps, tools built for specific tasks, with their own interfaces, that live within the Archie workflow. Steele featured two of these in the demo:<\/p>\n The company has also built a chronology app, and Steele said more apps are in development.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The release adds voice dictation, allowing users to speak prompts rather than type them, and tone profiles, which let firms adjust how emails, letters and memos should sound for different audiences.<\/p>\n Steele said Smokeball is also working on more granular tone controls \u2013 by practice area, staff member and client \u2013 and experimenting with learning tone from a lawyer\u2019s prior emails to a particular client.<\/p>\n One area Smokeball does not intend to build itself is legal research, Steele said. For that, Archie routes legal questions to integration partners. The first such partner is LawY<\/a>, an AI legal research tool that is part of Smokeball\u2019s group of companies and offers optional human verification of AI answers by qualified lawyers.<\/p>\n In the demo, when Steele asked what his options were under Florida law to enforce the MSA, Archie recognized the question as a legal one, sent it to LawY, and then fed LawY\u2019s answer back through its own agent to apply the law to the facts of the matter. It also offered, as a next step, to draft a demand letter based on the research.<\/p>\nTwo Years of Usage Data<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nFrom RAG to Agentic Reasoning<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Embedded in Word, Outlook and the Matter<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lawnext.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Voice-Dictation_Smokeball_ArchieNextGen-1024x1024.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nArchie Apps: Beyond Chat<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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\u00a0<\/strong>Voice, Tone and Legal Research<\/strong><\/h3>\n