Is AI Efficiency all there is?

Something I'm finding increasingly baffling with AI - why are all the law firms parroting 'efficiency' as the primary benefit?

[law firm] announces major partnership and rollout of [product] following successful pilot with [x] hours saved per week

Where are the improvements to quality or scope?

Where are the improvements to speed or turnaround times?

To only publicly talk about efficiency is to immediately beg the question on fees - and increasingly I see clients asking for discounts to reflect the actual/presumed efficiency

Whereas to articulate new capabilities, improvements to quality, "this used to take a week to turnaround, it now takes a day", "we could only manually review a sample, now we can cover everything" etc - these are all of value to clients and, if anything, invite a conversation about increased fees rather than discounting

I'm not seeking to cast aspersions around are those wider benefits actually being achieved

Nor am I seeking to pour fuel on "well it's all the billable hour's fault"

It's just an observation around the rather tone-deaf PR of it all

Bit of an unforced error and a boxing oneself into a corner when it comes to pricing

I get efficiency as a key selling point from the tech providers' perspective - those licensing costs aren't going to pay for themselves

Perhaps there's an extent to which the tail is wagging the dog here - but are firms really being led by the nose to such an extent that they're just parroting OpenAI/Claude/MS/Harvey/Legora's own marketing without giving any thought as to how it will land with their own clients?

It's just all very odd

Is AI Efficiency all there is?