Forensic investigations can generate enormous volumes of complex data, but identifying what matters most does not always have to wait until the end of a traditional forensic examination.
CDS AI Powered Forensic Triage brings together forensic technologies, data conversion, AI-powered analysis, and the Relativity platform to give forensic investigators, legal teams, and key stakeholders a faster way to interrogate data, identify potential evidence, and collaborate on next steps. Submitted as CDS’ Beyond entry in the 2026 Relativity Innovation Awards, the solution demonstrates how these capabilities can work together to accelerate the earliest stages of an investigation.
Importantly, forensic triage is designed to complement, not replace, traditional forensic investigation workflows. Detailed forensic examination should continue to be performed using specialist forensic tools to support accuracy, defensibility, and appropriate chain of custody.
Instead, the value of triage comes earlier, helping teams quickly understand the scale of an issue, validate allegations, identify potentially significant evidence, and determine where deeper investigation may be warranted. By bringing forensic outputs into a familiar review environment, teams can move more quickly from complex data to actionable intelligence while keeping forensic expertise at the center of the process.
Bring Forensic Data Into the Review Workflow
Traditional forensic tools provide powerful extraction and analysis capabilities. But the results of those investigations can sometimes remain within specialist applications, creating a disconnect between forensic teams and legal stakeholders.
Data may need to be exported into reports, transferred between systems, or communicated through regular email updates before legal teams can begin working with the findings.
CDS AI Powered Forensic Triage bridges that gap.
At the center of the workflow is CDS Convert, which has more than seven years of experience transforming complex data sources into structured, reviewable formats. That capability has expanded to include forensic computer image conversion from tools such as Magnet AXIOM, allowing extracted data to be transformed into formats designed for investigation and legal review.
The result is a central processing layer for forensic outputs, bringing together data such as:
- Chat messages and social media activity
- Email communications
- System logs and browser history
- Location and Wi-Fi data
- Device activity
Instead of waiting for a traditional reporting cycle to access key findings, teams can work with forensic data directly within Relativity.
Ask Questions in Plain Language
Once forensic data has been converted and made available for review, investigators can move beyond traditional keyword searches and manual tagging. AI-powered assistance allows users to ask questions in natural language.
The system can analyze available data, return a natural language response, and surface the evidence supporting that response. Depending on the investigation, that evidence could include message conversations, device activity, Wi-Fi connections, location data, or other relevant artifacts.
From there, investigators can refine the investigation by filtering around specific individuals, dates, themes, or other criteria.
And when investigators know what they are looking for but are not sure how to construct effective search terms, CDS Vision AI Search Assistant can help generate targeted searches from natural language prompts, case documentation, or investigation objectives.
This creates a more intuitive path from an investigative question to the underlying evidence.
Accelerate Large-Scale Analysis With AI
Forensic investigations can involve thousands or millions of documents and artifacts. Reviewing that information one item at a time can consume significant time and resources, particularly during early case assessment.
AI-assisted review can help investigators analyze large volumes of converted forensic data in minutes and hours rather than days or weeks.
Using Relativity aiR for Review, users can provide background on the case, define what makes a document relevant or irrelevant, and optionally identify specific issues or characteristics of key documents. The system can then analyze the data against those investigation objectives.
This approach can be applied to email communications, file content, and mobile chat data processed through CDS Convert. More structured sources, such as internet history and system logs, can also be analyzed to identify potentially significant information.
Rather than simply returning a collection of documents, AI-assisted analysis can provide summaries, rationale, and key considerations aligned with the objectives of the investigation.
The goal is not to eliminate expert analysis. It is to help investigators get to the information that deserves their attention sooner.
Make Visual Evidence Easier to Investigate
Not every investigation is driven by text. Cases involving intellectual property theft, misconduct, inappropriate behavior, or other allegations can generate significant volumes of visual evidence. Manually reviewing those images can create another bottleneck during early-stage investigation.
CDS Vision Image Gallery provides a streamlined environment for reviewing large volumes of visual evidence. Investigators can perform bulk image review, apply coding through keyboard shortcuts, identify duplicates, and use visual overlays to organize findings.
AI-powered image detection and automated summaries can also make visual evidence more searchable and easier to prioritize, or utilize Relativity aiR Custom Analysis to ask the system to find certain images, or extract information from the images making actionable and reportable insights
That means investigators can spend less time manually sorting through images and more time evaluating the evidence that matters.
Turn Findings Into a Clearer Case Strategy
Identifying potentially relevant evidence is only the beginning. Investigators and legal teams also need to understand what the evidence means, how events unfolded, and what should happen next.
Once sufficient information has been gathered to determine next steps, teams can use aiR for Case Strategy to compile findings, identify key events, and build investigation timelines. Investigators can provide the nature of the case, define what constitutes key information or events, and allow AI to analyze the evidence against those objectives.
The system can extract key facts from documents, identify when those facts occurred, determine who was involved, and assess whether information may be helpful or harmful to the case. Those facts can then be used to automatically build investigation timelines showing when significant events occurred and who was involved.
Teams can filter timelines by specific issues, entities, or time periods to examine how an issue developed over time. The system can also provide citations back to the underlying documents, helping investigators trace findings to their source.
For witness statements and similar investigative materials, these capabilities can help produce preliminary reports that summarize findings while linking directly to the supporting evidence.
These reports are not intended to replace a full forensic report. Instead, they can reduce the burden of early-stage reporting and provide clients with fact-based information to help guide decisions before moving into a full forensic investigation and technical reporting phase.
Faster Insight, Not Less Forensic Expertise
AI Powered Forensic Triage is not about replacing forensic expertise. It is about making that expertise more effective.
By combining proven forensic technologies, CDS Convert, AI-powered analysis, CDS Vision capabilities, and the Relativity platform, CDS helps teams move from complex forensic data to actionable intelligence more quickly.
The result is a workflow designed to:
- Identify potentially important evidence earlier
- Improve collaboration between forensic and legal teams
- Reduce unnecessary manual review
- Support faster early case assessment
- Help investigators focus their expertise where it matters most
- Give stakeholders clearer, fact-based information for decision-making
That combination of forensic technology, AI, and collaborative review is what makes CDS AI Powered Forensic Triage a Beyond innovation.
See What’s Possible
CDS AI Powered Forensic Triage demonstrates what can happen when forensic investigation is connected more closely to the legal review workflow.
It does not replace the tools, expertise, or rigor required for a full forensic examination. Instead, it helps teams make better use of the information available at the earliest stages of an investigation, turning complex forensic outputs into accessible, actionable intelligence.
That is why CDS submitted AI Powered Forensic Triage in the Beyond category of the 2026 Relativity Innovation Awards.
To learn more about CDS AI Powered Forensic Triage and how CDS can help transform complex forensic data into review-ready intelligence, contact the CDS team.
And if you believe innovations like this are helping legal teams work smarter, faster, and with greater confidence, we’d be honored to have your support in the 2026 Relativity Innovation Awards Community Choice survey.
