She breaks down why the AI company chose Sydney as the launch pad
Last month, US-headquartered AI company Harvey announced that it was establishing its first APAC base, with Ashleigh Whittaker set to take the reins as country manager. In the first part of this interview with Australasian Lawyer, Whittaker answers the question “Why Sydney?” and tells us where Harvey plans to go next.
You will be the country manager of Harvey’s first APAC office – how was Sydney chosen as the APAC launch pad?
Sydney is a fantastic hub for the greater APAC region. Launching here lets us operate in the same time zone as our customers and be boots on the ground across the region. While the office is located in Sydney, we’ll support customers across Australia, New Zealand, and APAC more broadly as we grow.
We’ve had incredible traction across the region over the last few years, and we’ve been impressed by how innovative Australian law firms and in house teams are in integrating AI into their work. Harvey has customers in over 50 countries, and Australia has proven to be one of the most forward-leaning markets for innovation. In addition to our in-house customers, we’re already working with more than 20 of Australia’s leading firms, including King & Wood Mallesons, Ashurst, Gilbert + Tobin, A&O Shearman and Clayton Utz – firms that continually demonstrate why Australia’s legal sector is at the forefront of AI adoption and innovation.
We’re also seeing strong momentum in New Zealand. Bell Gully, for example, has piloted and rolled out Harvey in really thoughtful ways to all of their lawyers. It’s that sort of engagement from law firms across Australia and New Zealand that I find exciting and really impressive, and it’s just one of the things that proved to us the region was a clear natural fit for our next office.
What are your top three priorities as leader of this office?
Deepening our commitment to the market. Not just in name, but by making long-term investments to ensure Harvey is purpose-built for the APAC legal sector. That means a commitment to ongoing investment in Australian data processing; continuing to embed integrated access to APAC legislation, case law and regulatory sources; and building our architecture to reflect jurisdiction-specific data security requirements.
Recruiting local talent. We're here for the long term, so it's important to me that we have jurisdictional depth of knowledge, and that we're investing in the country, not just in our clients.
Enable our customers to push the envelope on what’s possible. Australia is truly world class in the adoption of legal technology, and our customers are so advanced in the way that they think about legal innovation and AI tooling. Being in Australia enables our team to really engage with our customers in meaningful ways and co-develop together.
What are the top three challenges you anticipate in this role?
Overcoming inertia. No one is entirely sure what the future holds when it comes to AI. Many organisations are early in their AI adoption and unsure where to start. We need to meet our customers where they're at with respect to that challenge – whether that is large, firm-wide integrations that need to operate cohesively with the other AI tools they use, or teams just getting started on a small scale and testing, then growing over time as they identify ROI in use cases.
Pioneering responsible AI. AI is incredibly powerful for lawyers when used responsibly, yet failures can dominate the narrative. Harvey’s commitment to privacy and security is built into everything we do, so ensuring we deeply partner with customers to help them understand our commitment in this space will be a big opportunity for us.
Supporting adoption and change management. Two key questions that are top of mind for our customers are: How can we help customers map their current legal workflows into Harvey? And how do we do it in ways that are truly impactful? This is also a major opportunity for our team to bring best practice and global learnings into Australia.
Which areas of the APAC region does Harvey plan to expand into next?
We’re opening an office in Bengaluru, which will enable us to build and scale the platform in the region. We’re really committed to APAC as a whole, and see the region as a key part of our roadmap.
Launching in Sydney, with our first APAC hub, gives us the ability to meet demand where it's at and support our customers across the region.
