H
Hanzo
Hanzo is an ediscovery and preservation platform for dynamic and collaborative data, sold to corporate legal and compliance teams. Chronicle preserves websites and social media. Illuminate handles legal hold, collection and review across Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace and email. It preserves messages in place with threading, reactions, edits and deletions intact, applies holds by custodian, channel and timeframe, and captures new messages posted after a hold.
Spotlight AI, an optional layer within Illuminate, ranks and tags content for relevance by breaking a case into facets, explains why each item was flagged, and detects personal data and toxicity during early case assessment. Hanzo says it runs on local language models deployed inside the customer's tenant, so data does not leave the customer's environment, and it published a ninety five percent recall figure at launch in 2023.
The company is Hanzo Archives, Inc., a Delaware corporation based in Portland, Oregon, with a European office in London, and it states annual SOC 2 Type 2 audits since 2019 by a CPA firm. Its published master services agreement for purchases through the IBM Marketplace includes prior notice of compelled disclosure, an intellectual property indemnity, a twelve month liability cap and five million dollars of insurance. The agreement for direct purchases is not published.
Hanzo, head to head
Side by side on the same 15 capability axes and 12 legal signals: where the two part company, and what neither one publishes.
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Similar is not the same, so check that each one does the job you need. No vendor pays for placement.
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Ordered by how closely the graded profiles match across the 15 capability axes, inside the same categories. See how each axis is graded in the methodology.
Capability grades
All 15 axes, graded from public sources on the date shown. Hover a grade to see what the letter means on that axis.
AI Centrality
How much of the product is actually AI. Whether the machine learning is the mechanism the buyer is paying for or a feature layered onto conventional software, and whether the vendor is specific about which is which.
AI is optional and peripheral by Hanzo's own design. The Illuminate page describes Spotlight AI as an optional element that can be switched on within the platform. The FAQ describes two core products that work without it: Chronicle for website and social media preservation, and Illuminate for hold, collection and review of collaboration data. Hanzo's own 2023 account of how Spotlight AI began describes it as a feature added to a culling and preservation platform whose strength was culling large data sets.
Citation Accuracy and Hallucination Disclosure
Whether the vendor publishes measured accuracy on citations and assertions, grounds output to primary sources, and says plainly what its system does when it does not know. Legal has a documented public record of fabricated citations reaching filed briefs, so an untested claim of accuracy is not evidence.
Hanzo publishes a measured figure and explains its outputs, but describes no test set and has not republished the figure. The November 2023 launch release states ninety five percent recall in identifying documents pertinent to a case, with no test set, method or date of measurement, and there is no newer figure for the current product. The FAQ and Spotlight AI page say results are ranked and tagged so reviewers know why something was flagged.
Hanzo's engineering post describes facets written by generative AI that users can adjust and supply examples for, which grounds the review in the case description. The figure is three years old, and questions about primary authority do not apply to a review tool.
Autonomy and Oversight Model
What the system decides on its own, what a lawyer must approve, and whether the vendor documents where the review point sits. A tool that drafts under review and a tool that files without one are different products and different risks.
The modes, constraints and review surface are published; the full control structure is not. Spotlight AI is optional and switched on per matter. It flags anomalies and relevant content for human review, with an explanation for each flag. The model generates the facets that drive relevance, but users can add to, adjust and clarify them with examples, which Hanzo describes as giving the user control over first pass review while computers take the laborious steps, and it says the explanations make every decision defensible.
What is not published is the threshold at which content is excluded from review without a person, or any route back after a wrong relevance call beyond adjusting the facets.
Operational and Outcome Evidence
Named, dated evidence that the product works in production at real firms or legal departments. Case studies with figures and identified customers count. Unattributed testimonials and launch announcements do not.
Figures appear without a named customer. Hanzo's FAQ says first pass review moved from weeks to hours for some teams and that teams using Illuminate with Google Workspace data work up to fifty percent faster, both unattributed. Hanzo says it serves large corporations worldwide and is audited by several enterprise clients, none named. The site navigation links a case studies page.
Privilege and Confidentiality Posture
How client confidences are handled: attorney client privilege and work product treatment, segregation of one client matter from another, whether client data trains any model, and what the vendor commits to in writing rather than in marketing.
Hanzo publishes real commitments on separation, provider exposure and deletion, but no training statement and nothing on privilege as such. On model providers, the FAQ and About page say Spotlight AI runs on local language models deployed at tenant level, so data never leaves the customer's environment, which is the strongest possible answer on provider exposure if accurate. On separation, the Illuminate page describes controlled access for users, teams and third parties.
On retention, the IBM Marketplace MSA transfers client content on request within thirty days of termination and then deletes it. On confidentiality and legal process, MSA section 4 gives prior notice of compelled disclosure. There is no statement on training: the MSA licenses client content solely to provide the service without naming training, and the agreement for direct purchases is unpublished. Privilege and work product are not addressed.
UPL and Professional Responsibility Posture
Whether the vendor is clear that it supplies a tool rather than legal advice, who its audience is, and how it addresses unauthorized practice of law, competence and supervision duties, and jurisdiction limits. ABA Formal Opinion 512 is the reference point. Where the advice line is not the duty a product raises, the axis is read through the nearest professional duty it does raise: judicial conduct rules and the reviewing duty for products sold only to courts, and the duty to bill for time actually spent for products that draft time entries.
No advice line or supervision statement is published. The product is sold to corporate legal and compliance teams for preservation, collection and review. The IBM Marketplace MSA makes the client responsible for deciding whether the services are accurate or sufficient, and nothing says how the AI fits a supervising lawyer's duties or names a limit by jurisdiction. The site's own terms page says it is non binding and informational.
AI Governance and Bias Disclosure
Published governance over model behavior: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.
Hanzo publishes transparency principles without a governance framework, testing regime or accountable owner. It states three core philosophies for Spotlight AI, client data security, decision transparency and practicality, and its engineering post describes how it writes prompts and designs facets. Hanzo's FAQ says the company follows NIST standards and the ISO 27001 framework, which cover security, not AI governance.
No responsible AI framework, ISO 42001 or equivalent, test results before release or statement about uneven output is published.
AI Safety and Data Stewardship
Retention, deletion, access control, and what happens to prompts and documents after they are processed. Whether the vendor states its subprocessors and its incident practice, or leaves the buyer to assume.
Published policy covers most of the ground, within the agreement's scope. On retention, IBM Marketplace MSA section 7.3 gives thirty days after termination to transfer client content in the format set by the offer, then deletion unless legally prohibited. On access, MSA section 5.4 commits to commercially reasonable security against unauthorized access, the Illuminate page describes controlled access, and Hanzo's FAQ states annual SOC 2 Type 2 audits with a twelve month evidence period.
On incidents, section 5.4 commits to prompt notice of any breach that may expose unencrypted client confidential information, saying what is at risk, with immediate steps to stop continued access. No subprocessor list is published; Hanzo says the AI runs inside the customer's tenant. The MSA governs IBM Marketplace purchases, and the agreement for direct purchases is unpublished.
AI Liability and Recourse
What the vendor stands behind contractually when its output is wrong. Indemnities, caps, carve outs, insurance, and whether any of it is published or only reachable through a negotiated agreement.
What Hanzo stands behind is published and specific, and includes insurance. In the IBM Marketplace MSA of June 2023, section 9.1 gives a defense and indemnity for third party intellectual property claims, with listed exclusions and remedies to procure, replace, or terminate and refund. Section 6.1 caps each party's liability at fees received in the preceding twelve months and excludes consequential loss, carving out gross negligence, willful misconduct, breach of confidentiality and the IP indemnity.
Section 5.2 warrants material conformity with documentation, with remedial services, and section 5.5 makes the client responsible for accuracy and sufficiency. Section 10.2 commits Hanzo to carry five million dollars of commercial general liability and five million dollars of professional liability insurance for the term and two years after, with a certificate on request. The agreement covers purchases through the IBM Marketplace. The agreement for direct purchases is not published, and the site's terms page says it is not binding.
Practice Systems Integration Depth
How deeply the product reaches into the systems legal work already lives in: document management such as iManage and NetDocuments, Word and Outlook, contract lifecycle management, matter management, e-billing, and court filing systems.
The connectors are the product, and their depth is described. Hanzo describes preserving Slack in place, with holds by custodian, channel and timeframe and live syncing of new messages, and capturing Teams and Google Workspace data with threading, reactions, edits and deletions intact. The site navigation has a Data Connectors page. The 2023 launch says Spotlight AI uses IBM's watsonx.ai studio. What a customer must configure, and any connection to a review platform or document management system, are not described.
Deployment Model and Data Residency
Where the software runs and where the data sits. Multi tenant cloud, single tenant, private deployment, on premises, and whether region of residence is a published option or an enterprise conversation.
Deployment of the AI layer is stated clearly; the platform's residency is not. The FAQ and About page say Spotlight AI runs on local language models deployed at tenant level inside the customer's environment, so data does not leave the perimeter. The platform itself is hosted in the cloud, with no region, hosting provider or residency choice stated.
Security Certifications and Trust Center
Independent attestation a buyer can pull without a sales call: SOC 2, ISO 27001, penetration test summaries, a trust center with current reports and named scope rather than a badge image.
Certification is real, dated and audited by a CPA firm, but the report is available only on request. Hanzo's FAQ says SOC 2 Type 2 certification was achieved in October 2019 and is renewed annually with a twelve month evidence period, audited by a CPA firm to AICPA standards, alongside NIST standards, the ISO 27001 framework and audits by enterprise clients. IBM Marketplace MSA section 5.4 commits to provide the latest audit report on written request as confidential information. The auditor is not named and no trust center is published.
Model Supply Chain Disclosure
Which models sit underneath, whose they are, where they run, and whether the vendor commits to telling customers when that changes. A legal buyer inherits every dependency it cannot see.
The supply chain is partly disclosed. Hanzo's FAQ says Spotlight AI runs on local language models deployed at tenant level inside the customer's environment, which says where inference runs and that no outside model provider sees content. The 2023 launch says the solution uses IBM's data science and machine learning studio, now part of watsonx.ai, which names the platform provider. The engineering post describes generative models writing case facets. No specific model is named, and there is no commitment to notify customers of changes.
Commercial Transparency
Whether a buyer can learn what this costs without entering a sales process: published rates, the unit being charged, what sits behind an enterprise tier, and what implementation adds.
The agreement states the unit and structure but no figure. The IBM Marketplace MSA prices by data ingestion, storage or other metrics set in the offer, with overage charges above volume limits, on annual subscriptions that renew automatically for the shorter of the prior term or one year unless thirty days' notice is given. Fees can rise each year by the greater of three percent or CPI, and billing runs through IBM. No figure, tier or pricing page is published on Hanzo's site.
Firm and Practice Coverage
Who the product is actually built for. AmLaw, midlaw, small firm and solo, in house departments, government and courts, and which practice areas are supported rather than merely claimed.
Segment and coverage are described in substance, with some limits stated. The buyer is corporate legal and compliance, with industry pages for government, healthcare and corporations and use cases for legal hold, investigations, website preservation, ediscovery, early case assessment, DSAR and PCAOB evidence. Data coverage is Slack, Teams, Google Workspace, email, websites and social media. The product's scope, dynamic and collaborative data rather than all of ediscovery, is a stated limit; no jurisdiction or matter type is named as unsupported.
5 public documents
The public pages on file for Hanzo, with the recorded signals each one supports and the date it was last read. Open any of them and check the reading against the record.
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Client Data in Training, Prompt and Output Retention, Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice
Read Sep 6, 2026
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hanzo.co/faqs2 signals
Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior, Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Read Sep 6, 2026
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hanzo.co/illuminate1 signal
Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
Read Sep 6, 2026
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hanzo.co/spotlight-ai1 signal
Court Disclosure Support
Read Sep 6, 2026
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Fabricated Citation Record
Read Sep 6, 2026
No published figure
- You pay by how much data you bring in and store, on a yearly deal.
- Go over your limit and you pay extra at the rate on your order.
- The price can rise each year by 3 percent or by inflation, whichever is higher.
- No rates are published.
- If you buy through IBM's marketplace, IBM sends the bill.
The structure is published in the IBM Marketplace master services agreement of June 2023, without a figure. Section 2.3 licenses use up to data ingestion, storage or other metrics in the offer, with overage charges or capacity upgrades at new annual pricing above the limits. Section 3.1 sets annual subscription periods with fees that can rise each year by the greater of three percent or CPI-U, billed through IBM. Section 7.1 renews automatically for the shorter of the expiring term or one year unless thirty days' notice is given, each renewal subject to the annual increase.
No pricing page, tier or figure is published on Hanzo's site. The agreement governs IBM Marketplace purchases; direct pricing is by quote. No figure is published, which does not mean the product is free.
Legal Signals
What each signal meansA signal records what public sources say on the date shown. It is not a grade and it is not a recommendation. Where a signal reads Not addressed, it means the index did not locate the material in public sources on that date, which is a statement about disclosure rather than about the product.
Client Data in Training
Can material a lawyer puts into this product be used to train a model?
A published agreement or policy exists and none of it addresses the question either way, or the document that would answer it could not be read and the summary names the retrieval limit. The summary states which shape the silence takes: an improvement right granted that never names training, or no improvement right granted at all.
The published agreement does not mention training either way. IBM Marketplace MSA section 8.2 licenses client content to Hanzo solely as needed to provide the subscription service, and section 8.1 permits collecting and using aggregated, anonymized analytics that could not identify the client. A license limited to providing the service does not permit training, but no clause names model training. The agreement for direct purchases is not published and was not available to read.
Hanzo's FAQ and About page say Spotlight AI runs on local models inside the customer's tenant, which covers where data goes, not whether it trains models.
Prompt and Output Retention
How long does the product keep what a lawyer typed, and can that be set to zero?
A specific retention period is published and the customer cannot change it.
A specific period is published for purchases through the IBM Marketplace. MSA section 7.3 says that on request within thirty days of termination Hanzo transfers client content in the format and process set by the offer, and after that deletes all client data it holds unless legally prohibited; section 7.3 also requires return or destruction of confidential information. Nothing states a configurable window for AI facets, tags or outputs during the term, and the agreement for direct purchases is unpublished.
Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
Does retrieval respect the firm’s ethical walls, or can the model read across them?
Segregation is asserted in public materials with no published detail on how it is enforced.
Hanzo claims separation without documenting a permission model. The Illuminate page states controlled access for users, teams and third parties such as outside counsel, and Hanzo's FAQ says Spotlight AI is deployed at tenant level inside the customer's environment, which separates one customer from another. Nothing describes walls between matters within a tenant or how the relevance engine respects them.
Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice
If someone subpoenas the vendor for a firm’s data, does the firm hear about it first?
Terms commit to notice where lawfully permitted. No transparency report located.
The published agreement commits to notice for purchases through the IBM Marketplace. MSA section 4.2 allows disclosure of confidential information required by law, legal process or regulation, provided the receiving party gives the disclosing party reasonable prior written notice so it can contest the disclosure, and limits disclosure to what is required; client content is confidential information under section 4.1. The agreement for direct purchases is unpublished, and the site's terms page is non binding. No transparency report is published.
Primary Law Corpus Provenance
Where does the law in this product come from, and does the vendor have the right to use it?
No located public material identifies the corpus behind the product’s answers.
No legal corpus is named behind the product's output, and the product is not built on one: Spotlight AI assesses relevance across the customer's own collected collaboration data against facets generated from the case description, citing no law.
Good Law Verification
Does the product tell you when the authority it just cited has been overruled?
No located public material addresses whether authority is checked for subsequent history.
Nothing published addresses whether authority is checked for subsequent history, and the product does not retrieve or cite primary law; its output is preserved collaboration data and relevance assessments.
Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior
What does the product do when the answer is not in the corpus?
The vendor describes refusal or abstention behavior in public materials.
Hanzo documents how a reviewer can see why an item was flagged, rather than what the model does when it cannot decide. Its FAQ says results are ranked and tagged with reasons, the Spotlight AI page describes transparent explanations for every decision, and the engineering post describes facets a user can clarify with examples for edge cases. No abstention path or confidence threshold for uncertain relevance calls is described.
Fabricated Citation Record
Does a public court record exist addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations in output from this product?
No court order, opinion or disciplinary record addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations produced by this product has been located as of the date shown. This is a statement about the public record on that one subject, not a finding about the product, and this signal is not a litigation history.
The AI Hallucination Cases database maintained by Damien Charlotin records no court order, opinion or disciplinary record naming Hanzo, Illuminate, Chronicle or Spotlight AI, and no court finding naming them appears in the public record. A preservation and review tool that cites no authority has little exposure here.
Bar Guidance Alignment
Has the vendor engaged in public with the ethics opinions its buyers are bound by?
No located public material engages with bar or ethics guidance.
No public material names an ethics opinion, bar rule or professional responsibility framework. Hanzo's material covers the defensibility of preservation and review and PCAOB audit evidence, which are procedural standards, not bar guidance on lawyers' use of AI.
Billing and Fee Posture
Does the vendor address what happens to the bill when the work takes an hour instead of six?
The product does not touch a fee between a lawyer and a client. It operates before an engagement exists, or it is bought by a team that bills no client for the work. Savings claims aimed at the buyer’s own cost are recorded in the summary and do not make the row a savings claim, because no client bill is in the loop.
The buyer is an in house corporate legal or compliance team that bills no client, so the product sits outside a fee relationship between lawyer and client. The published savings are operational: weeks of first pass review cut to hours, and smaller collections. Nothing addresses how AI assisted review is recorded or disclosed on a bill, and law firms are not a named buyer segment.
Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Can a firm get this vendor through a client’s AI clause without a bespoke negotiation?
No located public material supports a client side disclosure obligation.
No subprocessor or model provider list is published, and Hanzo's answer on model providers is that there is none: its FAQ says Spotlight AI runs on local language models deployed inside the customer's tenant, so data never leaves the customer's environment, a statement a firm could forward to a client. The 2023 launch names IBM's watsonx.ai as the studio the solution uses. There is no published register of processors and no DPA on the site, and the agreement for direct purchases is not published.
Court Disclosure Support
If a judge’s standing order requires an AI disclosure, can the product produce one?
Some elements of the record are available, short of a document level export.
Some parts of a disclosure record exist, but no export of an AI use record is described. The Spotlight AI page says every relevance decision carries a transparent explanation so it is defensible, and the platform captures collaboration data in a format Hanzo says holds up to legal scrutiny, with edits and deletions intact. Nothing says a record of the model used, the facets applied and the human check can be exported for a court.