Relativity’s newest AI tools are opening new possibilities for legal teams, but innovation is not always about using technology exactly as it was designed. Sometimes, it is about recognizing what the technology can do, then adapting it to meet the realities of a different matter, jurisdiction, or legal workflow.
That idea is at the heart of CDS’ DACH Intelligent Investigations submission in the Workflow category of the 2026 Relativity Innovation Awards.
The workflow demonstrates how Relativity aiR for Case Strategy and aiR Assist can be adapted for Swiss and European investigations, where matters often follow a very different path from the adversarial discovery process common in the United States. Developed collaboratively with clients and CDS, the approach applies Relativity’s AI capabilities to help legal teams move from early investigation and analysis to council-ready deliverables.
Beyond the Traditional Discovery Workflow
Relativity aiR for Case Strategy was designed with the U.S. litigation market in mind. Its default workflow reflects a familiar discovery model, including depositions, witness preparation, and fact chronologies.
But Swiss and European matters often operate differently.
Rather than progressing through adversarial discovery, investigations may center on written submissions, regulatory correspondence, internal investigation reports, and formal memoranda to authorities such as FINMA. The challenge was not that the necessary analytical capabilities were missing. It was that the default workflow was designed around a procedural destination that did not necessarily fit these matters.
CDS worked alongside Swiss clients to explore a different question: How can the intelligence within these tools be unlocked for the way European legal teams actually work?
The answer was not to force an existing process onto a new type of matter. Instead, the team developed a flexible workflow that combines AI capabilities according to the needs of the investigation.
Start With What Matters, Not Just What Can Be Reduced
A central principle of the workflow is a fundamental shift from the traditional discovery mindset.
The objective is not necessarily to make a data population smaller. It is to identify the information that matters most.
That distinction changes how teams approach the earliest stages of an investigation. Using Relativity aiR Assist and Relativity’s analytics capabilities, legal teams can interrogate large data populations, ask questions, follow leads, and investigate what the tools surface.
Search terms, email threading, and filters help focus attention, while AI-assisted analysis helps teams explore the collection more dynamically.
Rather than following a rigid sequence, investigators can combine capabilities in the way that best addresses the question at hand.
The result is a workflow built around investigation, rather than simply review.
Four Flexible Phases of Intelligent Investigation
The DACH Intelligent Investigations workflow can be understood through four broad phases, from early assessment to the final deliverable. But these are not fixed steps. Teams can move between capabilities and apply them as the matter requires.
1. Assessment and Knowledge
The process begins with finding the needle in the haystack.
Teams use aiR Assist and other analytics capabilities to interrogate a large collection, asking questions and following the information the tools surface. Traditional search terms, email threading, and filters remain important tools for focusing attention.
The goal is to isolate the information that matters, not simply to reduce the overall volume of data.
2. AI-Ready Review
Once relevant information begins to emerge, existing classification and review protocols can be translated into validated prompts.
Those prompts are refined across successive rounds, with issue tags applied to documents identified as relevant. In this phase, legal teams’ existing review language becomes AI-ready instruction.
This creates a bridge between established legal judgment and AI-assisted analysis, allowing teams to apply their knowledge in a more scalable way.
3. Review and Quality Control
AI does not eliminate the need for human judgment. Instead, the workflow builds human review and quality control directly into the process.
Borderline, incompatible, and sensitive documents receive targeted human review. Statistical measures, including recall, prevalence, precision, and illusion, provide additional visibility into performance and help create an audit trail capable of supporting regulatory and internal scrutiny.
Defensibility is therefore part of the workflow from the beginning, rather than something added at the end.
4. From Analysis to Deliverable
The final phase brings the investigation toward its ultimate purpose: producing useful legal work product.
A final prompt iteration helps validate the aiR for Case Strategy prompts, after which the workflow can generate the substance of deliverables such as:
- Internal investigation memoranda
- Regulatory reports for FINMA
- Cross-border requests
- Briefings for senior counsel
- Evidentiary timelines for written submissions
The outputs are structured around Swiss and European legal conventions rather than U.S. filing norms. Counsel then reviews, refines, and finalizes the work product.
Turning AI-Assisted Analysis Into Action
The value of this approach becomes particularly apparent when matters are operating under real-world time constraints.
In one regulatory matter prompted by a FINMA supervisory inquiry, the response window was short. The workflow transformed a large document population into a structured chronology and produced an issue-by-issue factual memorandum within the available timeframe.
Instead of beginning the drafting process from a blank page and manually consolidating review findings, counsel started with an AI-structured foundation that could be refined and finalized.
That does not replace legal judgment. It gives counsel a more useful place to start.
Teams using the approach have described a similar pattern: work that previously took days can move faster, with lawyers spending more time refining and applying their judgment to structured outputs rather than manually assembling findings from the ground up.
Innovation That Crosses Borders
The DACH Intelligent Investigations workflow demonstrates an important principle about legal technology innovation: the value of an AI capability is not necessarily limited by the workflow for which it was originally designed.
Relativity aiR for Case Strategy was built to help legal teams understand facts and begin forming strategy earlier in a matter. By adapting that intelligence to the procedural realities of Swiss and European investigations, CDS and its clients are demonstrating how those capabilities can support entirely different legal destinations.
This approach builds on CDS’ experience applying Relativity AI across international matters. CDS was previously recognized with the aiR for Case Strategy Across Borders Award at Legalweek for helping clients apply Relativity’s AI capabilities across jurisdictions.
The DACH Intelligent Investigations submission takes that philosophy a step further: same powerful technology, reimagined around the way legal teams actually work.
See What’s Possible
Being innovative in legal technology does not always mean creating something entirely new. Sometimes, it means seeing what an existing technology can become when it is placed in a new context.
By combining aiR Assist, aiR for Case Strategy, human expertise, and rigorous quality control, the DACH Intelligent Investigations workflow helps legal teams move from large-scale data assessment to meaningful insight and council-ready work product.
It is an example of what becomes possible when technology is adapted to the matter, rather than asking the matter to adapt to the technology.
That is the kind of workflow innovation CDS is proud to bring to the 2026 Relativity Innovation Awards.
