Last year the firm rewarded staff after they exceeded a target of one million Microsoft Copilot prompts four months ahead of schedule, generating more than two million data points for analysis.

The next phase will focus on how staff use AI rather than how often. Chief executive David Jackson said: “We’ve created an AI fluency framework to equip our people with the skills that they will need to thrive in an AI age.”

The programme has four levels – AI Aware, AI Practitioner, AI Advanced and AI Leaders – ranging from a basic understanding of AI and its risks to a senior group focused on strategy and client relationships.

Mr Jackson said firm leaders had a duty to prepare staff for technological change. “I see it as very much my responsibility to help my people acquire the skills that they will need to be the leaders in an AI [age],” he said.

Data from the firm’s first AI initiative showed trainees and associates were the heaviest users, while partners used the tools less frequently. Mr Jackson said that reflected the importance of human oversight, adding: “When it comes to the supervision of the partners, that’s still done in the old-fashioned kind of just doing that human sense check, and I think that’s really important, and the data bears that out.”

The firm also found personal assistants were slower to adopt AI, which Mr Jackson linked to concerns about job losses.

“We’re using these tools to leapfrog the competition, and that means that we could, that we’re going to grow our business, we’ll need more bodies on the ground, not fewer,” he added.