The collaboration marks a major milestone for the banking industry, and is proof that in the most highly regulated environments, legal AI can be adopted with precision, responsibility, and measurable impact. But what truly sets this partnership apart is not just the technology. It’s the way Erste is implementing it.

Transforming legal work at scale

Following one of the most comprehensive evaluations Legora has participated in, Erste implemented the platform across its entire legal organisation: 250 lawyers, 30+ legal departments, seven jurisdictions. This makes it one of the most significant legal-AI deployments in the European financial sector to date.

“They put a lot of time and effort into setting up a stringent evaluation based on hundreds of use cases,” explains Leonard Schreij, VP of Revenue at Legora. “The platform was pushed to its limits, tested across jurisdictions, and assessed not only for capability, but for readiness to support a global bank’s real-world complexity”. But scale isn’t the whole story. The real breakthrough is the development of banking-specific workflows and playbooks that will guide contract review and operational standards. Playbooks allow Erste to create a consistent, structured approach for reviewing contracts with both speed and quality. Which is accelerating legal work by codifying institutional knowledge and raising the bar for quality across the entire organisation.

For Erste, the mandate is clear: provide legal guidance, accelerate the business, and uphold trust. For Legora, the mission is to give legal professionals an intelligent platform built for the realities of complex, multi-jurisdictional work. Together, we are setting a new benchmark for how AI powers modern legal teams in financial services.

A partnership built on trust, rigour, and shared standards

“In banking, trust is everything,” says Robert Schmidbauer, Head of Group Secretariat and Legal at Erste Group. “Any technology introduced into the bank must meet uncompromising standards of security, accuracy, and intention. That principle shaped every element of the selection process.”

For Fabian Otto, Legal Innovation Lead at Erste Group, this level of scrutiny was essential. With Erste operating both inside and outside the EU, regulatory pressure is constant. “We need to stay on top of regulation,” he notes. “At the intersection of AI and legal, you must choose your partners wisely.”

A rollout plan that set a new industry benchmark

Perhaps the most impressive part of the collaboration, and something rarely seen at this scale, is the depth and sophistication of Erste’s implementation plan. Instead of a traditional rollout, Erste built a fully integrated engagement model that brings together legal teams across all banking entities, cross-country experts, and dedicated champions embedded within each department. They layered this with a buddy-system to support new and slower adopters, established clear reporting lines to department heads, sponsors, and C-level leaders, and empowered a core internal cross-country team to drive alignment, training, and performance management across the organisation. The result is a governance ecosystem designed to ensure traction, consistency, and long-term value.

Champions with real responsibility

Sitting at the heart of the rollout’s success is a high level of ownership and accountability at every layer of the organisation. At Erste, it is becoming a masterclass in change enablement, as legal-AI champions are emerging as active drivers of progress. Their collaboration focuses on identifying high-value use cases, hosting expert sessions with Legora and core internal teams, sharing best practices across departments, supporting A/B productivity workshops, running monthly Quick-Check surveys, and representing their teams in ongoing planning and improvement cycles.

Performance measurement built into the core

This level of detail makes every step of the integration intentional. Key metrics are monitored and insights gathered to help improve the way Legora supports legal teams. A reporting framework brings together continuous check-ins with, monthly feedback loops, and the development of a structured use-case library.

Everyday impact: faster work, smarter thinking

For Ilona Sergejeva, Legal Counsel at Erste Group, the value of Legora shows up in the day-to-day: “For me, it's about working smarter, not just faster. Banking is one of the most regulated industries, but everybody still needs fast yet accurate support. It helps you speed up your daily tasks. And it’s creative. It gives me ideas which I probably wouldn’t think of.”

In a domain where accuracy is non-negotiable and timelines are tight, the combination of speed and quality is transformative.

Setting the standard

Erste and Legora’s collaboration ensures legal teams remain strategic advisors at the pace modern banking requires. “Challenging the status quo has never been more exciting,” Robert Schmidbauer says. This partnership represents a fundamental shift in how a major European bank approaches legal delivery, risk management, and operational excellence.

With Legora as its strategic AI partner, Erste Group is not just preparing for the future of legal work – it’s defining it.