Anthropic Enters Legal Tech: Why DOCX Track Changes Still Matter

On February 2, 2026, Anthropic launched a legal AI plugin that sent shockwaves through the legal technology industry. Thomson Reuters dropped 16%. Wolters Kluwer fell 10%. In a single trading session, $285 billion in market value evaporated from established legal tech incumbents.

The message was clear: AI is coming for legal work. But what exactly is Anthropic's tool doing — and what isn't it doing?

What Anthropic's Legal Plugin Actually Does#

Anthropic's Claude-powered legal plugin focuses on contract analysis and risk assessment. It can:

• Review contracts and flag risky clauses
• Triage NDAs by severity and exposure
• Identify compliance gaps across regulatory frameworks
• Summarize lengthy agreements into actionable briefs
• Flag ambiguous language that could create liability

This is genuinely powerful. Tasks that previously took a junior associate hours can now be completed in minutes. The analysis quality is impressive, and the $285B selloff reflects how seriously the market takes this threat to incumbents like Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer.

What It Doesn't Do#

Here's where the story gets more nuanced. Anthropic's tool reads and analyzes documents. It does not edit and produce them.

Specifically, it does not:

• Generate native DOCX files with tracked insertions and deletions
• Produce redlined documents that opposing counsel can review in Word
• Add inline comments anchored to specific paragraphs
• Preserve the document's original formatting while showing changes
• Create revision histories that satisfy audit trail requirements

This distinction matters enormously in legal practice.

Why Track Changes Are Non-Negotiable in Legal Work#

Every lawyer knows the drill. When you receive a contract from opposing counsel, you don't rewrite it from scratch. You redline it — marking your proposed insertions, deletions, and modifications using track changes so the other side can see exactly what you changed and why.

This workflow exists for critical reasons:

Collaboration and Negotiation#

Track changes enable a structured dialogue between parties. Each proposed change is visible, attributable, and can be individually accepted or rejected. Without this, contract negotiation devolves into comparing two versions of a document side-by-side — a process that's slow, error-prone, and misses subtle changes.

Audit Trails and Compliance#

Regulated industries require documented evidence of who changed what and when. Track changes provide this natively within the document format. Financial services, healthcare, and government contracts all mandate revision tracking for compliance purposes.

Professional Standards#

Courts and bar associations increasingly expect attorneys to maintain revision histories. A clean document with no change history can raise questions about the drafting process, especially in disputes over contract interpretation.

"

"You can have the best AI analysis in the world, but if you can't produce a properly redlined document, you can't close a deal."

The Gap Between Analysis and Editing#

This creates a clear gap in the legal AI workflow:

Analysis tools tell you what needs to change. Editing tools make the changes in a format your counterparties can work with.

How DocMods Fills the Gap#

DocMods is purpose-built for the editing side of this equation. When you upload a DOCX file and describe the changes you need, DocMods produces a native Word document with:

• Tracked insertions marked in the OOXML revision format
• Tracked deletions with strikethrough and author attribution
• Inline comments anchored to specific text ranges
• Preserved formatting — your styles, headers, and layout remain intact

<!-- How DocMods tracks a change in the document's XML -->
<w:del w:author="DocMods AI" w:date="2026-02-10T14:30:00Z">
  <w:r><w:t>shall use best efforts</w:t></w:r>
</w:del>
<w:ins w:author="DocMods AI" w:date="2026-02-10T14:30:00Z">
  <w:r><w:t>shall use commercially reasonable efforts</w:t></w:r>
</w:ins>

The output opens in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or any OOXML-compatible editor with full track changes support. Your opposing counsel sees exactly what changed — no additional tools required.

Complementary, Not Competitive#

The most productive legal AI workflow uses both types of tools:

1. Analyze the contract with an AI analysis tool to identify risks, ambiguities, and missing provisions
2. Edit the document with DocMods to implement the recommended changes as proper track changes
3. Review the redlined document before sending to opposing counsel
4. Iterate as negotiations progress through multiple rounds

This is not a zero-sum game. Anthropic's analysis capabilities and DocMods' editing capabilities serve different stages of the same workflow. Better analysis leads to more targeted edits. Better editing tools make it faster to act on analysis results.

What This Means for Legal Professionals#

The $285B selloff reflects anxiety about disruption, but the reality is more nuanced than "AI replaces lawyers." What's actually happening:

• Contract review is being accelerated by AI analysis (Anthropic, Harvey, others)
• Document production still requires tools that understand DOCX internals
• Human judgment remains essential for strategy, negotiation, and final approval
• Track changes are the interface between AI assistance and human oversight

The lawyers who will thrive are those who adopt both types of tools — using AI to work faster without sacrificing the document standards their practice depends on.

The Bottom Line#

Anthropic's entry into legal tech validates the market and accelerates AI adoption. But contract analysis is only half the workflow. Until AI can produce native DOCX files with proper track changes, redlining, and comments, legal professionals need specialized document editing tools.

That's exactly what DocMods is built for.

Ready to add AI-powered track changes to your legal workflow? Try DocMods and see the difference native DOCX editing makes.