Is Your Firm On AI-Roids?: How Microsoft’s “Steroids, Sneakers, Coach” Sports Analogy Applies to Legal AI

Personal injury firms are bombarded with “AI demand letter” tools — but not all AI is created equal. Using Microsoft’s “Steroids, Sneakers, Coach” framework, learn how to avoid black-box shortcuts, choose glass-box transparency, and leverage AI that strengthens your practice instead of replacing it.

In an increasingly saturated market for Legal AI, it’s becoming more difficult to determine which AI Demand Letter solution you should incorporate in your personal injury practice. Amidst all the hype, capital raised, and astronomical valuations, it’s easy to be lured to the seemingly quick fix (not to mention the cookies) that some companies offer personal injury firms.

It begs the question, “Will AI leave us stronger or weaker? It depends on if we design and use AI as a steroid, sneaker, or coach.” A topic that Microsoft’s research and development team posed in their article, “Steroids, Sneakers, Coach: The Spectrum of Human-AI Relationships”. The idea is you can think of AI tools as steroids, or sneakers, or a coach, depending on the relationship between the technology and its users.

Steroids: The Dangerous Shortcut

Steroids deliver fast gains but come with hidden costs. In Microsoft’s model, steroids represent AI that replaces cognition instead of enhancing it.

In personal injury law, you’ve seen this already:

• Hallucinated case law: Attorneys have been sanctioned or disbarred for filing motions citing AI-fabricated precedent. A short-term deadline saved, a career permanently damaged.
• Opaque claim predictions: Some “AI demand” vendors promise settlement predictions down to the dollar. But when insurers reject those inflated numbers, clients lose trust, and attorneys are left managing fallout they didn’t create.
• Hidden human review: Competitors tout “fully AI-generated” demand letters while quietly relying on overnight human reviewers to hit deadlines. That’s not automation; it’s opacity disguised as innovation.

Why Black-Box AI Puts Firms at Risk

Some companies offer AI medical chronologies that claim to have high accuracy, but how are they proving that? And what about the demand letter, your first opportunity to make an impression? How do you know you’re not leaving money on the table with missing data? You can’t with ‘black box AI’, a term for artificial intelligence systems where the decision-making process is opaque and difficult to understand, even for those who created the system. Remember when a leading “AI Demand Letter” company was outed by their employees for their poor use and advertisement of AI when in reality, their employees were doing late-night human reviews to meet deadlines?

Settlement Intelligence Co-founder Attorney Aaron DeShaw recently posted a video regarding the problematic features other companies promote, like using AI to predict claim outcomes with dollar amounts. What if you can’t settle the claim for anywhere near those estimates? What does your client think then?

Steroid AI creates a dependency without building capability. It solves for speed, not accuracy, and leaves attorneys exposed, reputationally, ethically, and financially.

Sneakers: Tools That Make You Faster

Sneakers, on the other hand, enhance performance without eroding skill. Just as a carbon-fiber racing shoe helps a marathoner shave minutes off their time, sneaker-style AI tools make lawyers more efficient without touching the underlying judgment.

Examples include:

• Summarizing deposition transcripts.
• Translating medical records for multilingual claims.
• Reformatting existing content for clarity or tone.

Sneakers improve output, not expertise. They’re useful, but they don’t strengthen your practice in the long run. Similarly, AI Demand Letter solutions that fail to capture all of the valuable data drivers from the file, or worse, hallucinate facts, do not strengthen personal injury claims, but rather limit settlement offers.

Sneaker AI might help you draft a demand letter within minutes; it might get you to the finish line faster, but it won't improve your bottom line. Not for your law firm, or your clients.

Coaches: Building Durable Advantage

The highest value comes when AI acts as a coach, augmenting judgment, developing skill, and improving attorney performance over time. Coaches don’t just give answers; they teach you to solve problems better. They make you a better athlete.

When it comes to personal injury law, this type of coaching historically comes from Continuing Legal Education (CLE) and mentorship, featured by publishers who have been around long before AI, like Trial Guides or Westlaw, offering curated strategies from legal greats like Moe Levine and Gerry Spence, real-world insights, and tools that deepen expertise. At Settlement Intelligence, we’ve extended that philosophy into AI Demand Letter generation:

• Glass-box transparency: Every AI generated demand letter includes proprietary accuracy scoring and metadata links back to the source evidence — so you never fumble during negotiations.
• Training built in: Our platform doubles as a guide, helping firms collect the data insurers’ own claim-scoring AI expects, strengthening case fundamentals from day one.
• Negotiation-ready insights: With more than 20 years of expertise in writing demand letters and reverse-engineering insurance claim evaluation software, Settlement Intelligence empowers its users with in-platform insights to maximize settlement offers.

This isn’t automation for its own sake. It’s AI designed to sharpen legal strategy and give firms leverage, not shortcuts.

Why It Matters

With more than 90% of auto and premises liability claims being evaluated by insurance AI like Colossus, Claim IQ and Liability Navigator, if your demand letter doesn't include the right data drivers, you can't unlock maximum claim value.

A demand letter is often the first impression an insurer has of your client’s case. Miss a key injury detail, and you leave money on the table. Overpromise settlement values, and you erode trust. Use a black-box system you can’t defend, and you risk ethical exposure.

By contrast, glass-box AI builds a stronger personal injury practice:

• Higher accuracy and consistency across medical chronologies and demand packages.
• Transparent, defensible evidence trails.
• Better negotiations, because you understand every value driver behind your claims.

Settlement Intelligence was among the first to bring AI to personal injury demand letters and remains the only patent-pending AI Demand Letter platform. With over 20 years of experience in both drafting demand letters and understanding how insurers’ internal scoring systems value them, we build AI that makes attorneys better, not replaceable.

The Decision Point: Steroids, Sneakers, or Coach?

Microsoft’s framework offers a clear takeaway:

• Steroids give short-term speed but long-term liability.
• Sneakers improve efficiency but don’t build expertise or strengthen the bottom line.
• Coaches deliver sustainable advantage — equipping attorneys to outperform competitors while staying in control of outcomes.

Settlement Intelligence was built to be your coach, not your crutch. In an environment where insurers already deploy sophisticated AI to minimize payouts, your firm can’t afford shortcuts that weaken your position.

The question is simple: Are you on AI-roids, or are you training with a coach?

Don't trust other AI Demand Letter companies offering steroids or sneakers. Partner with Settlement Intelligence for demand letters that are tailored to trigger insurance AI for maximum claim value.

At Settlement Intelligence, we’re committed to better outcomes for personal injury lawyers and their clients. Our platform doesn’t just generate instant demand letters; it trains firms on how to collect the data that insurers’ AI systems expect, giving you leverage at every stage of the claim.

Currently in alpha testing, our full AI Demand Letter platform features a glass-box approach with built-in accuracy scoring, transparent evidence links, and expert insights. So you never fumble in negotiations.

With two decades of expertise and patent-pending technology, Settlement Intelligence continues to set the standard for AI-powered demand generation. Staying power isn’t a marketing claim, it’s proven ROI, shared voluntarily by the firms we serve.

Learn more and hear what our customers have to say at demandletters.ai

*Disclaimer: Settlement Intelligence, Inc. is not a law firm. The materials on this site do not constitute legal advice and should not be interpreted as such. Legal advice must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each case, and nothing provided on this site should be used as a substitute for advice of competent counsel.