ML One AI, a generative artificial intelligence solution developed by Xpand IT in partnership with Morais Leitão, has been recognized at the FT Innovative Lawyers Europe Awards 2026, winning the Innovation in Knowledge & Data category. Presented by the Financial Times, this international award highlights a project that is transforming how legal knowledge is searched, accessed, and used.
For Xpand IT and Morais Leitão, this recognition marks a significant milestone in a collaboration that has put generative artificial intelligence to work on a specific challenge: transforming decades of legal knowledge into a more accessible source of information, without compromising the security, confidentiality, and accuracy requirements that define the legal profession.
International recognition for innovation in the legal sector
The FT Innovative Lawyers Europe Awards recognize initiatives that contribute to transforming legal practice through new approaches to technology, processes, and knowledge management. In 2026, ML One AI won the Innovation in Knowledge & Data award, standing out for its use of artificial intelligence to unlock the value of Morais Leitão’s accumulated knowledge.
The recognition took into account the solution’s originality, leadership, and impact, including the levels of internal adoption achieved.
More than a technological distinction, the award demonstrates how innovation can address real organizational needs and create new ways of working with highly specialized information.
ML One AI: making decades of knowledge more accessible
In a law firm, knowledge is one of the most valuable assets. However, as information grows and becomes distributed across different documents, systems, and sources, finding the right content can become increasingly complex.
This was one of the challenges faced by Morais Leitão.
With decades of accumulated legal documentation, including legal opinions, precedents, articles, templates, and other specialized content, the firm was looking for a way to make this intellectual capital more accessible to its teams.
The answer came in the form of ML One AI, a generative artificial intelligence solution developed by Xpand IT that enables professionals to interact with internal knowledge by asking questions in natural language.
Instead of relying exclusively on traditional searches and reviewing documents individually, users can explore different information sources through a conversational experience, receiving contextualized answers and references to relevant documentation.
The project integrates internal knowledge sources, including the iManage document management platform, and was designed to meet the specific requirements of the legal profession.
Security and information governance played a central role from the outset, ensuring that sensitive data remains within a controlled environment and that the use of artificial intelligence complies with the firm’s confidentiality principles.
From technology to adoption: the real impact of Artificial Intelligence
Developing a generative artificial intelligence solution involves much more than integrating a language model. In the case of ML One AI, it was essential to understand how Morais Leitão’s professionals search for, interpret, and use legal information, ensuring that the technology meets the teams’ actual needs.
The collaboration between Morais Leitão and Xpand IT brought together specialized legal expertise with capabilities in artificial intelligence, software engineering, and user experience design.
The result is a solution that helps simplify access to information, supports the reuse of internal knowledge, and enables greater efficiency in legal work.
The ability to distinguish factual information from AI-generated suggestions, as well as to consult the sources used, was particularly important in delivering an experience suited to an environment where accuracy and trust are essential.
Adoption was also a key part of the strategy. Rather than simply introducing a new tool, the project aimed to integrate it into professionals’ daily workflows through an intuitive experience and an approach focused on real-world usage.
This is one of the aspects that makes international recognition particularly significant: innovation was assessed not only based on the technology developed, but also on its impact within the organization.
A collaboration that transforms knowledge into value
Winning the Innovation in Knowledge & Data award reflects a shared vision between Xpand IT and Morais Leitão: technology delivers greater value when it addresses a specific challenge and is designed around the people who will use it.
ML One AI demonstrates how generative artificial intelligence can go beyond task automation, helping organizations maximize the value of their knowledge assets, improving access to specialized information, and supporting new ways of collaborating.
In a sector where information quality, confidentiality, and accuracy are essential, the solution provides a concrete example of how technological innovation and business expertise can work together.
For Xpand IT, this international recognition reinforces the importance of developing artificial intelligence solutions tailored to each organization’s context, processes, and objectives.
Because the true impact of artificial intelligence lies not only in what the technology can do, but in the value it enables organizations to create.
