Google-funded study shows AI boosts junior patent attorneys' drafting but not their long-term judgment

A study funded by Google found that junior patent attorneys using Google Labs' unreleased AI assistant, InFlow, significantly outperformed those without AI in patent claim drafting tasks at both 10-day and 90-day follow-ups across five scoring dimensions. However, in a redlining task measuring internalized judgment without AI, the AI advantage only benefited senior attorneys, while juniors showed no benefit, suggesting AI may accelerate some skills while replacing others, and baseline expertise is key for durable ability.