Brazilian Companies Use AI to Stop Lawsuits Before They Start
Major Brazilian companies are shifting how they handle legal disputes. Instead of waiting for cases to reach court, Nubank, iFood, Porto, Ânima Educação, and others now use artificial intelligence and automation to prevent lawsuits, resolve conflicts early, and cut costs.
Humberto Chiesi Filho, Nubank's legal director, said the company's approach rests on three priorities: prevention, litigation management, and dispute resolution. "First, we try to avoid litigation. When that is not possible, we focus on proper management and, preferably, seek consensual solutions," Chiesi said at AB2L LawX 2026, a legal technology conference in Rio de Janeiro this week.
Building a Legal Data Lake
Nubank uses AI from the moment it analyzes new products through ongoing court case monitoring. The company built an internal tool that has organized more than 3.2 million legal documents into a centralized database, allowing it to spot patterns in customer complaints and operational weaknesses.
"We transform this database into structured data, which helps improve legal defense strategies and identify opportunities to improve the business and communication," Chiesi said. The system also flags cases the company considers abusive litigation, helping legal teams distinguish legitimate disputes from frivolous ones.
Real-Time Conflict Resolution at Scale
At iFood, AI handles operational disputes before they escalate. Rodolfo Araújo, the company's legal and tax director, said iFood has used artificial intelligence since 2018 and built its own legal-operations and tax-technology teams to connect lawyers with IT and data specialists.
The company developed a platform called Toqan that combines internal AI tools in a controlled environment for sensitive legal information. "We mitigate risks associated with external tools and create a governance environment," Araújo said.
With more than 100 million orders per month, iFood cannot manage disputes manually. The company uses automated systems in its app to resolve customer issues in real time by connecting consumers and restaurants before problems escalate to consumer-protection agencies or courts. "The dynamic is to resolve conflicts before they become judicial conflicts," Araújo said.
Settlement Success Rates Above 80 Percent
Traditional insurers are adopting the same approach. Porto, an insurance company, began building conciliation operations in 2020 to handle its large volume of lawsuits. The company uses a platform to organize case information, identify weaker cases, and automatically route settlement negotiations.
Today, Porto's settlement success rate reaches 84 percent for cases sent to negotiation. "The platform helps us a lot because it can parameterize what needs to be analyzed to improve effectiveness in our work and in settlements," said Adriana Simões, Porto's legal director.
Ânima Educação faced a surge in disputes after acquiring Laureate Education's Brazilian assets in 2021, which expanded its student base and legal exposure. The company now focuses on two strategies: addressing root causes of litigation and increasing settlements in suitable cases.
Ânima's settlement success rate stands at 83 percent, and the company has reduced actual payouts by 43 percent compared to initial legal risk estimates. "We need to shift from a litigator mindset to a conflict-resolution approach," said Humberto Cordella, Ânima's legal director.
Technology Behind the Shift
Both Porto and Ânima use a platform developed by Concilie, which runs 500 to 600 conciliation sessions daily. AI tools automatically identify lawsuit categories using keywords and route internal workflows without human involvement.
The system captures new lawsuits filed against client companies, classifies claim types, and alerts relevant departments to gather information and assess settlement potential. After review, a centralized system sends automated settlement invitations through WhatsApp, SMS, and email for virtual hearings.
Guilherme Galvão, Concilie's operations director, said the technology has compressed timelines dramatically. "What used to take weeks and a huge team to accomplish, we now do entirely with technology," he said.
For managers overseeing legal operations, the implications are clear: prevention and early resolution now compete with traditional litigation as primary strategies. Companies that build data infrastructure and connect legal teams with technology specialists are reducing both dispute volume and resolution costs.
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