Anthropic Wins Harvey AI User from OpenAI - Google Partnership

Harvey Expands AI Model Choices Beyond OpenAI

The legal AI platform, Harvey, is now integrating foundation models from both Anthropic and Google, representing a shift from its previous reliance on OpenAI’s technologies. This development was announced by Harvey in a blog post released on Tuesday.

Significance of the Change

This move is particularly significant considering Harvey’s position as a highly successful portfolio company within the OpenAI Startup Fund. The OpenAI Startup Fund is designed to support businesses building products leveraging AI, with a primary focus on OpenAI’s own technologies. While Harvey maintains it isn’t abandoning OpenAI, but rather diversifying its model selection, it still represents a substantial win for OpenAI’s competitors.

Early Backing from OpenAI

Harvey was among the initial four startups supported by the OpenAI Startup Fund, as revealed in December 2022. This occurred while Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was directly managing the fund. Other companies in this first group included Descript, Mem, and Speak.

Rapid Growth and Valuation

Since its inception, Harvey has experienced considerable growth, achieving a $3 billion valuation in February. This valuation followed a $300 million Series D funding round led by Sequoia, with participation from other prominent investors like Coatue, Kleiner Perkins, and the OpenAI Fund.

Google's Investment and Model Adoption

Interestingly, GV, Alphabet’s venture capital arm, spearheaded Harvey’s $100 million Series C funding in July 2024, with the OpenAI Fund also contributing. However, Harvey didn’t immediately integrate Google’s AI models despite this investment. GV also participated in Harvey’s Series D round.

The Role of the "BigLaw" Benchmark

What ultimately prompted Harvey to broaden its model usage? The company’s internally developed benchmark, named "BigLaw," demonstrated that a diverse range of foundation models are becoming increasingly proficient in various legal tasks. Furthermore, certain models excel in specific areas.

Focus on Leveraging Existing Models

Instead of dedicating resources to model training, Harvey determined it could more effectively utilize high-performing, reasoning foundation models from multiple vendors – including Google and Anthropic through Amazon’s cloud – and then refine them for the legal sector.

Benefits of Model Diversity

Employing a variety of models will also be advantageous as Harvey develops AI agents, according to the company.

Benchmark Results Highlight Model Strengths

“In under a year, seven models – including three that are not from OpenAI – now surpass the original Harvey system’s performance on the BigLaw Bench,” Harvey stated in its blog post.

Specific Model Capabilities

Harvey’s benchmark also revealed that different foundation models demonstrate varying strengths in specific legal tasks. For example, Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro “excels” at legal drafting but “struggles” with pre-trial tasks like crafting oral arguments due to its limited understanding of “complex evidentiary rules like hearsay.”

Comparison of OpenAI and Anthropic Models

According to Harvey’s testing, OpenAI’s o3 performs well in pre-trial tasks, with Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet closely following.

Public Benchmarking and Transparency

Harvey announced it will contribute to the growing trend of publicly sharing model benchmark performance data. The company will publish a leaderboard ranking the performance of major reasoning models on legal tasks. This will include detailed research with “top lawyers providing nuanced insights into model performance not captured by single-score benchmarks.”

Increased Pressure on AI Providers

By adopting competitor models, Harvey is simultaneously increasing the pressure on its investors, including Google, to continually demonstrate their capabilities. Despite this, OpenAI remains a leader in the AI field, even amidst growing benchmarking complexity.

Harvey's Continued Relationship with OpenAI

“We are incredibly fortunate to have OpenAI as an investor in Harvey and a key collaborator in our product,” Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg told TechCrunch. “We are also excited to expand options for our customers as we continue to meet their global needs.”