Italy's AI law 132/2025: what it means for law firms

In 2025 Italy became the first EU country to adopt a national law on artificial intelligence, Law 132/2025, which works alongside the EU AI Act. Most of the law deals with general principles, public administration, health, work and copyright. One article speaks directly to lawyers and other intellectual professions.

The two rules for professionals

1. AI supports, the professional decides. Professionals may use AI only for instrumental and supporting activities. The professional's own intellectual work must remain prevalent.

In practice: AI can find, summarize, compare and draft. The lawyer judges, chooses and signs.

2. Tell the client. To protect the relationship of trust, professionals must inform clients about the AI systems they use, in clear, simple and complete language.

In practice: a short paragraph in the engagement letter, kept up to date, describing which tools you use and for what.

What this means day to day

• Keep humans in the loop. Use AI output as a draft or a pointer to sources, never as the final word.
• Prefer tools that show their sources. If an assistant cites the passage it relied on, the lawyer can check it in seconds, and can show the client how the work was done.
• Know your tools. You cannot inform clients clearly about a tool if you do not know where it runs and what happens to their data.
• Keep a record. A log of how AI was used on a matter makes it easy to answer client questions later.

How it fits with the GDPR and professional secrecy

Law 132/2025 does not replace existing duties. Client data processed by AI is still personal data under the GDPR, and still covered by professional secrecy. The simplest way to satisfy all three is to use an assistant that runs on infrastructure the firm controls, cites its sources and logs its use.

A simple compliance starter

1. List the AI tools used in the firm and what they are used for.
2. Remove consumer tools from any work involving client data.
3. Choose tools that keep data in your office or in Italy, cite sources and keep logs.
4. Add an AI use paragraph to your engagement letters.
5. Train lawyers to treat AI output as a draft to check.

Bluebotica's private assistant is built around these principles. See how it works or book a demo.