OUP expands AI-powered products for researchers
Oxford University Press (OUP) has launched Oxford Law Pro, aimed at supporting legal researchers and legal professionals to improve research outcomes. Powered by a conversational AI research assistant, Oxford Law Pro brings together more than 9,000 journal articles and 600 books “to make legal research more efficient without compromising on accuracy”.
Hosted on Oxford Academic, Oxford Law Pro will enable legal researchers to access high-quality, reliable explanations of what the law is and how it is evolving, as well as commentary from industry experts about the latest complex and highly regulated topics in its Expert Essentials series. Researchers will be able to search OUP’s portfolio of authoritative legal analysis – spanning books, journals, and short-form content – in key areas such as arbitration, international law, commercial law, competition law, technology regulation, and intellectual property law.
The launch builds upon OUP law books moving to Oxford Academic in 2024, with the aim of expanding the reach of its resources in support of its mission, streamlining the research journey across law books and journals, and improving the user experience for legal researchers.
The AI research assistant navigates OUP’s quality assured legal research content to deliver summaries, source links, and relevancy scores. It only returns OUP sources, allowing researchers and professionals to expand their expertise by interrogating the collection of legal research resources. The assistant – developed with technology company Silverchair – is the newest addition to OUP’s line of AI-powered products for researchers.
John Campbell, Product Strategy Director for OUP’s Academic division, said: “Oxford Law Pro strengthens OUP’s position as a leading legal publisher and represents the qualities we’re recognised for: leadership, trust, integrity, and peer-reviewed insight. We want to support a responsible and sustainable future for AI tools in the research community, so we only develop tools that solve the problems of our customers and users.
“AI tools should work alongside expert human input, identifying the relevant content you need and making your discovery of scholarship quicker, whatever your specialism. With Silverchair, we’ve taken great care in ensuring Oxford Law Pro’s AI assistant is trustworthy thanks to the experts that are tuning and testing it. It’s not simply a black box being put in front of customers; it adheres to our editorial reputation and the excellence they expect from our products.”
The launch of Oxford Law Pro follows the development of a pilot AI search tool on the Oxford English Dictionary website, and the addition of an AI assistant on Oxford Academic, both aimed at simplifying the research journey for users.