When he was a teenager, Sabastian Niles said on this week’s Drinks With The Deal podcast, he told his high school newspaper that he wanted to be a high-tech lawyer. He achieved that goal in a spectacular way three years ago, when he joined Salesforce Inc. (CRM) as president and chief legal officer after practicing for 17 years at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

At Salesforce, a San Francisco-based producer of cloud-based customer relationship management software, Niles has become a prominent voice about how lawyers and other professionals should incorporate artificial intelligence into their practices in a series of white papers, including one published in April.

On the podcast, Niles argued that AI is reshaping legal work by improving productivity, strengthening decision-making and allowing lawyers to focus on higher-value judgment while maintaining governance and trust. He also discussed Salesforce’s efforts to build an AI-native legal organization and integrate AI agents into legal workflows.

Niles described how legal teams can support innovation while balancing risk management, stakeholder interests and corporate growth. He said that law firms must embrace AI responsibly or risk falling behind increasingly sophisticated corporate clients and emphasized that human judgment remains essential for high-stakes legal decisions and governance.

Listen to the podcast with Sabastian Niles below:

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