Harvey, a $3 billion AI startup now being touted as one of the most successful early-backed companies by the OpenAI Startup Fund, recently made headlines. The company brought in the most advanced generative AI models from Anthropic and Google to augment its legal tech platform. This prescient move significantly expands the scope of Harvey’s intelligent AI agents. Part of their charm is their capacity to tackle a multitude of legal tasks while ensuring increased efficiency.
It didn’t take long for Harvey to clearly prove itself as a frontrunner in the legal tech industry. It was one of the first four startups that our OpenAI Startup Fund has invested in. As recently as February, the company trumpeted a staggering $300 million Series D funding round. Sequoia Capital led the round, and a number of high-flying investors including Coatue, Kleiner Perkins, GV and the OpenAI Fund joined. This influx of capital stands to improve Harvey’s technological advancements and market position even further.
Harvey’s recent internal benchmarking learned that no single foundation model was best on every legal task. The company has discovered that OpenAI’s o3 model excels specifically in pre-trial situations. The most shocking findings Our benchmarking analysis produced some surprising results. Yet in under a year, seven models—three of which are not from OpenAI—have exceeded Harvey’s original system on the BigLaw Bench metric.
Together with this new integration of Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Google’s AI models, Harvey achieves a remarkable new level of performance. Developed by Harvey, their project is building upon several different universal, high-performing reasoning foundation models, from various vendors. This process produces better performing AI agents purpose-built to serve the legal market. The startup did not immediately adopt Google’s AI models after receiving investment from Google’s corporate venture firm but has now recognized their value in enhancing its offerings.
For his part, Winston Weinberg, CEO of Harvey, sounded a hopeful note about these early signs of progress. He stated, “We are incredibly fortunate to have OpenAI as an investor in Harvey and key collaborator in our product. We are energized to add to our options for customers as we continue to serve the needs of our customers globally.”
In joining the growing ranks of companies sharing a public leaderboard for model benchmark performance, Harvey is positioning itself as a transparent and competitive player in the legal tech space. The company’s decision to lean into high-performing models will be a smart move going forward as it hones its products for the legal community.
By combining the capabilities of several different AI models, Harvey increases operational efficiency for Harvey users. In addition, it enhances Harvey’s capacity to respond to diverse client needs. Harvey is constantly testing the newest breakthroughs in generative AI technology. It’s this commitment to innovation that drives the company’s development of forward-looking solutions for the legal community.
That’s because the legal landscape is rushing to catch up with the pace of technological change. Startups like Harvey are at the forefront, developing AI’s transformative applications to the market. In turn, Harvey works closely with industry leaders to build its technological toolkit. This better positions the company to remain on the cutting edge of legal innovation.
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