Steno

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.

Transcript Genius is a real generative product and it is given away. The vendor states that it is included in the product suite with no additional charge and no usage limitations, and the home page markets it as free with all Steno depositions. What a customer actually pays for is the services business underneath: court reporting, videography, interpreters, remote and hybrid depositions, equipment rental, conference rooms, and DelayPay deferred payment. Remove the AI and every one of those remains, along with Steno Connect for Zoom and the Firm Dashboard. The terms make the commercial position explicit by reserving the right to change the price of Transcript Genius or limit a person's usage of it at Steno's sole discretion, which is the language of a bundled extra rather than a core product. This is also where the membership screen sits: Steno is on the seed list as the deliberate borderline case, included because it ships a transcript analysis product rather than because it books court reporters, and that reading holds, but the same fact that makes it a software vendor at all keeps it low on this axis. The AI is a feature layer on a product whose value stands entirely without it.

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.

Grounding is real, documented and unusually well built into the product, and no number is published anywhere. Every generated answer carries a clickable page-line citation into the transcript, the interface presents the answer side by side with the source, and the vendor's own FAQ frames the point in one line: human verification is a simple click away. Summaries carry the same linked page-line citations so a reader can check any assertion against the original. Where a firm has ordered Text to Video Sync, a citation opens the synchronised deposition video at that moment, so a claim about testimony can be checked for tone and credibility rather than wording alone, which is the most complete verification path located in this pull. Retrieval is described at a working level, combining exact-match and semantically related search across the firm's transcripts. What is absent is measurement: no accuracy figure, no test set, no evaluation, no error rate, and no published comparison, against a marketing claim of unparalleled accuracy. The agreement is franker than the marketing and is recorded here for the gap: it states that AI is not perfect and may make mistakes, and disclaims any warranty of accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, timeliness or suitability for outputs. One limb does not apply and is neither credited nor penalised, since a citator is out of scope for a tool reading deposition transcripts rather than law.

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.

A written commitment that the tool sits under a lawyer's judgement, alongside the most candid statement about unsupervised operation in this pull. The agreement says both things in the same clause: that Transcript Genius uses artificial intelligence with no human oversight to assist with searching and interrogating transcripts, and that its outputs are provided as research aids and do not constitute legal advice, attorney work product, or a substitute for review of the underlying record. The first half tells a buyer that nobody at Steno checks an answer before it appears; the second places the obligation to check on the user and names the thing they must check against. Real review surfaces support it rather than leaving it as an instruction: per-answer page-line citations, a side-by-side transcript view, and video sync to the cited moment. Adoption is opt-in, with the terms requiring the customer to enable AI features through the Dashboard, and a design limit is published, in that only final ordered transcripts can be interrogated and not drafts. What is missing is the failure path: no abstention behaviour, no confidence or uncertainty indicator, no threshold at which the tool declines, and no route to report or correct a wrong answer.

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.

Named customers in quantity, no measurement attached to any of them. Five quotes carry a name, a title and a firm: a partner at Panish Shea Ravipudi, a director at Ivie Mcneill Wyatt Purcell & Diggs, a paralegal at Citron & Citron, an attorney at Gamliel Law, and an attorney at Burneikis Law who is also the subject of a published customer story about Transcript Genius. That is full attribution rather than a logo wall, and the firms are identifiable plaintiff and litigation practices rather than unnamed segments. What is absent is any figure. The customer story is qualitative, describing time reclaimed without saying how much, and none of the quotes carries a number or a date. One figure exists but sits outside the vendor's own current material, in trade coverage of the beta reporting an average saving of two to four hours per case, which is not published on any Steno page located on 31 Aug 2026 and is not credited here. No case study with a stated method was located. Checked the Transcript Genius page, the home page and the terms of use.

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.

Substantive published commitments on both confidentiality and training use, with one disclosure a buyer needs to read carefully. The agreement limits vendor access directly: Steno will not access or view Content except as authorised or instructed by the customer, as required to perform its obligations, as provided in the agreement and privacy policy, or as required by law, and undertakes physical and technical safeguards consistent with SOC 2. The customer retains copyright in its Content and grants only a revocable licence to access it to provide and operate the Services, with a further carve-out permitting aggregated and de-identified use to improve the Services. Training is addressed twice and in the customer's favour, with the terms stating that data shared with Anthropic through Steno is not used as broader training data and the product page stating that transcripts and conversations are never used to train the AI and that AI partners do not retain data after a session. The disclosure that needs reading is about recordings: the terms state that Steno may record the entirety of proceedings for backup purposes, including portions considered off the record, which in a deposition can include exchanges counsel would treat as privileged, and commit only that a backup recording will not be shared absent a valid subpoena without objection or a court order. What is missing is segregation: nothing describes a wall between matters, and the Firm Dashboard is designed for search across all of a firm's depositions at once.

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.

The single best-drafted advice-line clause located in this pull, and no engagement with the guidance behind it. The AI section of the terms states that AI tools are provided as research aids and do not constitute legal advice, attorney work product, or a substitute for review of the underlying record. That one sentence does three things most vendors leave to three separate clauses or omit entirely: it separates tooling from advice, it disclaims work product status rather than implying it, and it names the supervision obligation in concrete terms by identifying what the lawyer must go back and read. The general disclaimer reinforces it, stating that content on the Services is informational only, is not advice of any kind, is not a substitute for professional advice including legal advice, and that the user must seek independent professional advice before acting. Eligibility is stated at eighteen and above with a competence representation. What holds it below the top band is the surrounding framework rather than the clause. No bar or ethics authority is named on any product or policy surface, including ABA Formal Opinion 512, and no jurisdictional limit is stated. The vendor's blog carries an item titled as covering ABA and state legal ethics guidance on artificial intelligence, which was not opened on 31 Aug 2026 and is the rebuttal route.

AI Governance and Bias Disclosure

Published governance over model behaviour: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.

What exists is disclosure rather than governance, and one published term runs directly against a governance reading. The agreement is unusually forthcoming: it names the model, states that the tool runs without human oversight, commits that the model provider does not train on the data, and separately discloses that Steno uses AI internally for drafting communications, support triage, software development and routine operations under agreements that prevent those providers training on the data. Disclosing internal AI use at all is rare. But none of that is a governance framework. Searched the Transcript Genius page, the home page and the complete terms of use on 31 Aug 2026 and located no responsible AI page or principles, no accountable owner for model behaviour, no pre-release testing or evaluation regime, no published result, and no model documentation. The term that cuts against a governance reading is explicit: Steno may change the generative AI platform on which Transcript Genius is built at any time and in its sole discretion, which is a reserved right rather than a change-management commitment. Nothing anywhere addresses bias or uneven output, and the gap has a specific edge here, since the product analyses spoken testimony and the same company books interpreters, so performance across accents, dialects and interpreted evidence is the live question and is unasked.

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.

Most of the ground is covered across the agreement and the product page, with the usual two gaps. Retention and deletion are customer-controlled and stated plainly: uploaded documents, recordings and other materials are stored until the customer instructs Steno to delete or destroy them, which places the lifetime in the customer's hands rather than behind a schedule. Model-side retention is addressed separately and tightly, with AI partners stated not to retain data after a Transcript Genius session and the conversation thread kept only to give follow-up questions context and not shared to others. Access is limited contractually, with Steno undertaking not to access or view Content outside four named circumstances. Certification is claimed as SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA, and a data processing addendum is published and incorporated into the terms where applicable law requires. Third parties are named where they touch data: Anthropic as the model provider, Stripe and Bill.com for payments. What is missing is a maintained subprocessor list beyond those named in passing, and any incident response or breach notification practice, neither of which was located on the readable surfaces on 31 Aug 2026. The Vanta-hosted trust centre and the published DPA were not read and are the rebuttal route for both.

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.

The exposure the AI creates is disclaimed precisely and nothing is allocated back to the buyer. The terms cap Steno's liability for any damages arising from or related to the agreement, for any cause and regardless of the form of action, at one hundred US dollars, and state that more than one claim will not enlarge the limit. No carve-out from that cap is named anywhere, which distinguishes this from the other capped agreements in this category that at least exclude fraud, wilful misconduct or confidentiality breaches. Indirect, consequential, exemplary, incidental, special and punitive damages are excluded, suppliers are given no liability of any kind, and a broad release with a California Civil Code 1542 waiver runs from the customer to Steno. Disputes go to mandatory individual arbitration before the AAA in Los Angeles with a class action waiver and a thirty-day opt-out. A dedicated AI disclaimer states that outputs are provided as is and with all faults, with no representation or warranty of accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, timeliness or suitability, and that the customer assumes all risks associated with using them. The only indemnity in the agreement runs from the customer to Steno. No warranty attaches to any output, and no insurance position appears.

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 first named practice management integrations in this category. Steno publishes dedicated pages for a Clio integration and a Litify integration, both of which are legal practice systems in daily use rather than generic cloud storage, and both are surfaced in the primary navigation under Technology and Integrations rather than buried. Steno Connect for Zoom is a deeper integration than the name suggests, running the deposition inside Zoom with exhibit upload, sharing, numbering and annotation handled in the meeting rather than alongside it. The terms add third-party account linking for Google and Microsoft credentials and a general provision on connected accounts governing export of information to third-party services. What is not established is depth. The Clio and Litify pages were not opened on 31 Aug 2026, so what those integrations actually move, in which direction, and what a firm must configure is unverified, and no application programming interface, developer documentation or integration index was located. Nothing names a document management system, with nothing found for iManage or NetDocuments, and nothing for e-billing or court filing.

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.

Cloud delivery is implied throughout and the residency question is never reached on any readable surface. The product is a browser-based dashboard with a Zoom application, and the terms describe materials being stored on Steno's systems and housed securely pursuant to its security protocols, which establishes that the vendor holds the data without saying where. Searched the Transcript Genius page, the home page and the complete terms of use on 31 Aug 2026 and located no cloud provider, no region, no data centre location, no residency option or commitment, no tenancy model, and no statement distinguishing where transcripts are stored from where model inference runs, which matters here because the terms name a third-party model provider that processes the content. One retrieval limit belongs on the record rather than in the grade: the vendor operates a Vanta-hosted trust centre at trust.steno.com, linked from the primary navigation and every page footer, whose body renders client-side and returned no content on fetch on 31 Aug 2026. That is a limit on this index rather than an absence on the vendor's side, and nothing in it is inferred here, but it is the most likely home for infrastructure detail and should be read before this grade is relied on.

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 and stated in two places, with none of the surrounding detail that would let a buyer test it. SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance are asserted on the Transcript Genius page as covering all data in the platform, and the agreement reinforces the first by undertaking safeguards in accordance with the policies guiding SOC 2 compliance. A dedicated trust centre exists at trust.steno.com, hosted on Vanta, and is linked from the primary navigation and from every page footer, which satisfies the connector this axis looks for and puts it a long way ahead of the vendors in this pull whose attestations sit on an unlinked parent portal. The vendor also extends the point outward rather than stopping at itself, stating that its AI partners adhere to the same standards and linking directly to Anthropic's own trust centre, terms and privacy policy from the agreement. What is absent: no auditor is named, no report date or coverage period is given, no scope statement appears, and no route to obtain a report is published on any readable surface. The trust centre body renders client-side and did not return content on 31 Aug 2026, which is recorded as a retrieval limit rather than graded, and nothing inside it is credited.

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 most specific model disclosure in this pull, and it is in the agreement rather than the marketing. The terms state that Transcript Genius is built primarily on the large language model of Anthropic's Claude technology, name the provider, and link directly to that provider's trust centre, commercial terms and privacy policy so a buyer can read the downstream commitments themselves. No other vendor across pull 2 names the actual model family its product runs on. The data position is stated alongside it, with data shared with that provider not used as broader training data, and a separate paragraph disclosing that Steno's internal AI use runs under agreements preventing those providers from training on data. What keeps it out of the top band is the change term, which is published and adverse: Steno may change the generative AI platform on which Transcript Genius is built at any time and in its sole discretion. That is a disclosure rather than a notification commitment, and it means the model behind an answer given today may not be identifiable tomorrow. Also absent: no model version, no statement of where inference runs, and no subprocessor list beyond the providers named in passing.

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.

Real figures are published and none of them is the price of the thing a firm actually buys. What a buyer can learn without asking: Transcript Genius carries no additional charge and no usage limitation, though Steno reserves the right to change that at its sole discretion; cancellation of a court reporter or videographer after 4pm on the business day before a job attracts a late fee of up to 400 dollars; interpreter cancellation terms run from 48 hours to 30 days in advance depending on dialect and the fee may be the interpreter's full charge; invoices more than 30 days late accrue interest at the lesser of 1.5 per cent per month or the legal maximum; and DelayPay defers case costs until settlement. Those are specific, unusual to publish, and all ancillary. The core rate is not published: the terms state that Steno makes its rates available on a rate card provided upon request and that rates may be separately negotiated, and that any quotation is a non-binding estimate for which the firm remains liable if the invoice exceeds it. There is no pricing page, no tier structure and no per-page, per-hour or per-witness figure. A buyer can price a cancellation to the dollar and cannot price a deposition at all.

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.

Who the product is for is clear and where it reaches is not stated, which for a deposition services business is the question that matters most. The buyer is identified without ambiguity across the material: litigation teams at law firms, with the deferred payment offering aimed squarely at contingency and plaintiff-side practices, and the terms contemplating firm administrators managing end users such as legal assistants and paralegals. Product coverage is stated in useful detail, with Transcript Genius accepting third-party transcripts in text and PDF alongside Steno's own so a firm can analyse depositions taken by opposing counsel, and with proceedings of any scale claimed from single depositions to complex multi-party matters. What is absent is geography and practice. No list of states or jurisdictions in which Steno can staff a proceeding was located, which is the decisive coverage question for court reporting, and the only geographic signal on the readable surfaces is a navigation entry for litigation support services specific to California and a Nevada firm registration in the footer. No practice area is named as served or unsupported. The services pages were not opened on 31 Aug 2026 and are the rebuttal route.