Questel Releases 2026 IP Outlook Results – 73% of Respondents Agree AI Will Forever Transform IP Roles

In 2026, 83% of Respondents are Turning to AI to Save Time and Costs, up from 77% in 2025

PARIS & ALEXANDRIA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Questel, a world leader in intellectual property (IP) solutions, today released results of its 2026 IP Outlook Report ‘From Risk to Reward: AI and the IP Profession’ which revealed that 73% of respondents agree AI will forever transform IP roles, up from 64% in 2025. Also, a robust 83% of 2026 respondents are turning to AI to save time and costs, up from last year’s 77%.

This year’s Questel Report directly addresses one of today’s most pressing questions about the legal industry: how exactly is AI impacting the practice of IP law? The Report provides invaluable, timely benchmarking statistics regarding IP lawyers’ adoption of AI technology solutions, including the most significant challenges, opportunities and emerging trends.

Major Impact of AI and Other IP Tech

63% of respondents said evolution in IP technology (SaaS, AI Agents) has had the biggest impact of any factor affecting the IP profession in the past 3-5 years. In 2026, a hearty 88% of IP professionals now spend up to half their time reviewing trainee, AI agent, or external supplier work rather than creating the work from scratch. This is evidence of a shift, namely that the focus of human time spent is now more supervisory to check AI output for accuracy.

As satisfaction with AI rises, so do adoption and demand rates: 85% of in-house counsel would prefer their IP legal service providers to embrace AI solutions, 82% of IP professionals plan to increase use of AI for IP in 2026, and 65% of organizations not only use AI tools for IP work, but also report a positive impact on their work.

AI Use for Patents vs. Trademarks

For patents, the top 3 areas for AI adoption are Patent Search and Patent Summarization, which each held their #1 and #2 spots respectively from 2025. However, Competitor Analysis increased by 21% over 2025’s figure and overtook Patent Translation for 3rd place. Concerning AI use for trademarks, the top three tasks were Office Action Management, Trademark Search, and Trademark Reporting.

Human Expertise Still Highly Valued in IP

The value of IP lawyers’ human expertise remains paramount, with the top 5 most valuable IP skills and experience indicated by survey respondents as:

• Legal knowledge & advice
• Commercial/strategic acumen
• Drafting/research/support functions
• IP search platform expertise
• IP task/workflow coordination

Many Technologies to Solve Many IP Problems

To free them up to focus on these more strategic tasks, IP professionals are looking to IP technologies to resolve many burdensome and complex processes. According to the Report, the top 3 IP management challenges facing IP professionals today are: Workload/Management/Productivity (51%), Increasing Internal AI and Digital Competencies (49%), and Showcasing IP Value Creation (39%). Since all 3 challenges can be addressed with modern technology solutions, it’s no surprise that 59% of survey respondents plan to increase spending on IP technology in 2026.

Respondents rely on a variety of technologies to manage IP assets, with IP management systems at the top of the list:

• 58% use an IP management system daily
• 49% use a generic AI tool (i.e., ChatGPT) at least once daily
• 48% use an IP search/analytics tool every day

Training for IP Professionals Falls Behind

But while AI and other technologies are clearly showing value to IP professionals, both training and access to AI tech are subpar. Only 26% of respondents say they have been fully onboarded to use all available AI tools. 36% are still tracking, communicating and collaborating on IP tasks via email, and 43% struggle to recruit IP professionals with experience or competency in their IP management systems. In other words, many IP specialists have access to technology, but not the training or motivation to leverage the full benefits of their purchases. Most likely, this is partly due to fragmentation and lack of interoperability between the platforms that have been developed for IP professionals.

“At Questel, we believe IP solutions must fundamentally change to make IP management effortless for companies and law firms,” said Frederic Beylier, CEO of Questel. “In our vision for a unified IP ecosystem, superior IP data, AI-powered workflows, and human expertise come together seamlessly to give our clients control, efficiency, and confidence. Our company has long been recognized for the quality of our data and the depth of our expertise. Today, we are going further—breaking down silos between data, software, and services, replacing complexity with clarity, and developing secure, and human-centered AI solutions for IP—to shape the next generation of IP solutions.”

About the 2026 Report

The 2026 Report surveyed more than 500 IP professionals across the globe (Europe, Americas, Middle East/Africa, and Asia Pacific) in Q1, 2026. The majority (61%) of respondents held senior IP positions within their organizations, including Chief IP Officer, Head of IP/Legal, GC, Law Firm Partner or Company Director.

Click here to download the full 2026 report.

Questel will be exhibiting at Booth#1811 at the upcoming 2026 INTA Annual Meeting in London.

About Questel

Questel provides an integrated suite of IP software and expert-led services to more than 20,000 clients and 1.5M users across 30 countries. Its comprehensive platforms harness best-in-class IP data and cutting-edge agentic AI workflows to boost productivity and efficiency across inventions, patents, design, trademarks and domain names. Questel also offers services supporting the IP lifecycle, including searching, watching, international filing, translation, renewals, and recordals. These solutions, when combined with its IP cost management platform, deliver clients significant savings across the entire IP lifecycle. Questel has 30 offices around the world and is headquartered in Paris, France. Find out more at Questel.com or on LinkedIn.