A survey of 123 partners at law, accounting, and other professional services firms finds a wide gap between ambition and readiness when it comes to AI for business development. The report, released by relationship intelligence company Introhive and conducted by strategy firm Thinktiv, shows that 47% of partners want help surfacing new business opportunities from existing relationships. But 78% say the relationship data at their firms is hard to act on, and most of those using AI for this purpose are relying on general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini—which cannot access that data.
The survey also found that 57% of partners place their firms at the lowest two of four business-development maturity stages, yet 84% expect to reach the top two stages within two years. Introhive CEO Lee Blakemore said he would not bet against large law firms, but noted the target keeps moving. Among partners already using AI for business development, satisfaction with general-purpose tools averages 6.7 out of 10, and only 22% say their firm has a fully implemented AI strategy.
Partners ranked cross-sell opportunities, alerts on at-risk relationships, and relationship mapping as the most valuable uses of combined firm data, while credit attribution ranked last. The biggest friction points were knowing where to focus time, making time for business development, and identifying cross-sell opportunities. Blakemore argued that AI can become a new interface that prompts lawyers to act within their daily workflow, rather than requiring them to log into a separate CRM system—but only if the underlying data is accurate. The survey also found that 63% of firms have no revenue-linked way to measure business-development return on investment.