Member Voices: Anna Tujakowska
Anna Tujakowska
Recent Speaker on Artificial Intelligence
Sołtyński Kawecki & Szlęzak (Poland)
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Briefly describe your role.
I am an international arbitration lawyer and Head of LegalTech & Innovation at Sołtyński Kawecki & Szlęzak (SK&S), one of Poland's leading law firms.
Alongside acting as counsel and arbitrator in international and domestic arbitration proceedings, I advise clients on AI governance, AI regulatory compliance, including the EU AI Act, and broader AI transformation projects. Within the firm, I lead our AI transformation efforts, helping lawyers adopt new technologies while maintaining professional standards, confidentiality, and regulatory compliance.
You spoke during WLG's June AI roundtable and helped to bring the discussion to our APAC and EMEA colleagues earlier in September. What did you find most interesting or surprising about the conversation among member firms?
What surprised me most was how similar the concerns were across jurisdictions. Regardless of firm size or location, we are all facing the same questions around AI adoption, governance, and client expectations.
The topic that resonated most strongly was the impact of AI on junior lawyers. We all want young lawyers to develop AI skills, but we also need to ensure they continue developing critical thinking, legal judgment, and analytical abilities. Finding the right balance between innovation and professional development may be one of the biggest challenges facing the legal profession today.
Your practice brings together international arbitration and AI, including your work on the use of AI in arbitration proceedings. Where do you see AI having the greatest potential to change how arbitration is conducted, and are there areas where you think lawyers should be more cautious about its use?
AI will undoubtedly make arbitration more efficient by helping lawyers manage and analyse large volumes of evidence, procedural documents, expert reports, and legal authorities.
However, what I find particularly interesting is AI not only as a tool used in arbitration, but as a source of future arbitration disputes. As businesses increasingly rely on AI systems, we are likely to see disputes concerning data, governance, liability, compliance, and contractual allocation of AI-related risks.
An especially interesting question is whether breaches of the AI Act in the deployment of high-risk AI systems could affect the enforceability of arbitral awards. More specifically, could giving effect to an award in such a dispute be contrary to public policy? Not every regulatory breach would meet that threshold; the key question is whether enforcement would conflict with fundamental principles protected by public policy. How that distinction will apply to AI-related disputes remains an open question.
At the same time, lawyers should be cautious about relying on AI-generated legal analysis without proper verification, in particular in light of watermarking and transparency obligations. AI can support legal work, but responsibility for legal judgment, strategic decisions, and procedural fairness must remain firmly in human hands.
You are also responsible for the AI transformation process at Sołtysiński Kawecki & Szlęzak. What have you learned from implementing AI at the firm that you think other law firms could benefit from knowing?
The biggest lesson is that AI transformation is fundamentally a people project, not a technology project. Most firms can access the same tools. The real challenge is creating a culture where lawyers feel comfortable experimenting, learning, and sharing their experiences. Governance and training are important, but adoption happens when people see tangible value in their daily work. I've also learned that there is no universal use case. Different lawyers and practice areas benefit from AI in different ways, so flexibility is just as important as structure.
What is something outside the legal world — a person, idea, experience, or piece of technology — that has recently made you think differently about the future?
My husband, who is not a lawyer and runs an AI-focused business, has had the greatest influence on how I think about the legal future in the AI era. He constantly explores new technologies, trends, and ways of working. Many of the conversations I have with him challenge assumptions that are common in the legal profession. What he has taught me most is the importance of connecting dots across disciplines. Lawyers are trained to analyse deeply, but often within relatively narrow frameworks. And the most valuable insights often emerge where technology, business, psychology, design, and other fields intersect.
AI has reinforced my belief that future success in legal world will depend on combination of three components: deep legal expertise combined with technological skill combined with uniquely human qualities; judgment, creativity, adaptability, intuition, empathy; and the ability to see connections that others miss. As AI becomes increasingly capable, our real advantage will come from combining technology with distinctly human skills and multidisciplinary thinking. The people who will thrive will not be those who compete with AI, but those who know how to work with it while bringing perspectives, creativity, and emotional intelligence that technology cannot replicate.