Our Insights on eDiscovery

The landscape of eDiscovery and investigations has changed dramatically. What was once a world dominated by email and static documents has evolved into a complex ecosystem of cloud platforms, mobile data, chat applications, and collaborative tools. This is a Part I of a special 4 part series presented by CloudNine. Read on as we dive into Part I – Smarter PII and FOIA Request Management: Automated Redaction in CloudNine Review.

For more than a decade, enterprise IT strategy favored an almost singular mission: get as many data and business processes as possible into the public cloud. While that approach unlocked scalability, rapid provisioning, and new ways of working, a “Cloud Reset” is now reshaping enterprise infrastructure strategy with major implications for government agencies, legal operations, litigation support teams, and corporate legal departments.  

While cloud-based review platforms offer undeniable advantages such as scalability, rapid deployment, and remote access, this industry-wide transition has also created an unintended consequence: a growing vacuum for organizations that still require on-premise review. For many legal teams, cloud-only is not a preference, it’s a limitation. 

As legal discovery continues to evolve, so does the data at its core. Collaboration platforms, cloud-based enterprise tools, and mobile devices now generate the majority of potentially relevant evidence. Slack, Microsoft Teams, M365 workloads, and smartphone data are no longer edge cases, they are the case. 

If one theme defined the past year in eDiscovery and Information Governance, it was acceleration. Data volumes grew. Data types multiplied. Expectations around speed, defensibility, and insight continued to rise. At the same time, artificial intelligence moved from an abstract promise to a practical component of everyday legal, compliance, and investigative workflows. 

For more than a decade, the industry narrative has been clear: everything is moving to the cloud. And while cloud-based eDiscovery platforms like CloudNine Review continue to grow in capability and adoption, the reality inside many organizations tells a more nuanced story.  Not every workflow can, or should, move to the cloud. That’s exactly why on-premise processing and review remains not only relevant in 2026, but essential.

In an era where nearly every technology headline seems to focus on the cloud, it’s easy to assume that all data processing and document management solutions have moved there. For many organizations, cloud-based discovery tools have indeed brought tremendous flexibility and scalability.  But for others, especially those managing sensitive, high-volume, or budget-conscious projects, on-premise solutions remain essential. 

Let’s face it, most organizations are drowning in data and struggle with gaining control. At the same time, threat actors are targeting those who hold a lot of data and especially sensitive data. Storage used to be cheap, but now we’re seeing vendors in the data ecosystem monetizing that volume to a greater degree. Add the element of GenAI and the data footprint grows exponentially as does the need to control any exposure. 

In today’s litigation and investigation landscape, data volumes and communication channels continue to multiply. From emails and chat platforms to mobile data and collaboration tools, legal teams face an overwhelming challenge: identifying what matters most, as early as possible. The sooner counsel can assess case merit and key issues, the better equipped they are to shape strategy, evaluate risk, and control costs.