Extract from Catherine “Cat” Casey’s article “AI-Powered E-Discovery is Turning Computer Vision into an Art Form”
Visual content has permeated written communication of all types in the last few years—most notably with the influx of short format communication platforms, emojis, GIFs, and more. The dramatic impact this non-text-based content has on e-discovery and uncovering insights is staggering. Thankfully, e-discovery tools increasingly possess functionality to help practitioners identify, classify and review images in a near native manner to preserve context and accelerate time to insight.
The Visual Invasion
The “work from home” revolution in 2020 accelerated an already rapid adoption of short format communication tools, ushering in more informal communication styles. From Slack to Teams, SMS to informal emails, this informality created an opportunity for people to inject more personalized and image-based content into not just their personal but also their business lives.
Emoji usage, for example, is at an all-time high. But the visual invasion extends beyond emojis. Slack, SMS and Teams are all chock full of static images and GIFs, not to mention the seemingly unending volume of Zoom recordings accumulated over the last 18 months. As cases and investigations start coming based on this time period, the flood of potentially relevant image based ESI is likely to become a tsunami.
