The Complete Guide to Using AI as a Legal Professional in Italy in 2025

For legal professionals in Italy this guide matters because AI is no longer hypothetical: 63% of large companies are already adopting or planning AI adoption, and reports estimate a potential €115 billion productivity uplift for Italian firms - changes that will touch compliance, procurement and public‑sector interactions alike (Minsait report on AI adoption in Italy (2025)).

The national Italian AI Strategy 2024–2026 stresses anthropocentric, reliable and sustainable AI, so lawyers must master both rules and risk while advising clients or evaluating tools (Italian AI Strategy 2024–2026 official summary).

With the market forecast to approach €1.8B by 2027 and uneven SME adoption, practical skills matter - from court analytics to safe prompt use (see tools like Lex Machina legal analytics tools) and targeted training such as the AI Essentials for Work bootcamp (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp registration) to turn disruption into an advantage.

“We are convinced that there can and must be an Italian way to artificial intelligence.”

Yes - AI is allowed in Italy, but its use now sits inside a layered patchwork of EU rules and fast‑moving national moves that set real limits for lawyers advising clients: the EU AI Act (in force since 1 August 2024) is the principal framework and already bans certain “unacceptable” uses and imposes literacy and transparency duties that began applying from 2 February 2025, while Italy is racing to add national detail via a recently Senate‑approved AI Bill (first reading on 20 March 2025) that explicitly complements the EU regime with sectoral safeguards for health, public administration, employment and intellectual professions, plus local‑storage preferences for public‑sector AI and enhanced copyright and deep‑fake labelling rules (see the White & Case tracker and the Two Birds summary for the Senate text).

Practical limits are already enforced today through existing laws - GDPR, the Italian Data Privacy Code and competition and consumer rules - and the Italian DPA has shown it will act (recall the 2023 ChatGPT intervention and follow‑up notices on web‑scraping), so firms must treat AI use as permitted but conditional: map risk, document human oversight, and keep data and hosting constraints front‑of‑mind (Italy's approach even contemplates national hosting for some public AI - a striking “digital Made in Italy” constraint that changes procurement and vendor choice overnight).

For legal teams, the takeaway is straightforward: AI tools can be used, but only with mapped risk controls that satisfy EU obligations and the new national nuances now moving through Parliament (monitor AgID/ACN roles and DPA guidance closely).

“It's unfortunate, but it's not the first time that a European regulation has not been implemented or transposed by the expected date.”

The regulatory picture for AI in 2025 is no longer theoretical and legal teams in Italy must treat dates and rules as actionable: the EU AI Act (in force since 1 August 2024) already made prohibitions and an “AI literacy” duty effective on 2 February 2025, and a second wave - notably governance, national competent authorities and obligations for general‑purpose AI (GPAI) models - kicked in on 2 August 2025, with most high‑risk requirements following in 2026–2027 (see the EU AI Act implementation timeline for the full schedule).

GPAI providers now face mandatory transparency, training‑data summaries, copyright policies, technical documentation and incident‑reporting duties, while Member States must name market surveillance and notifying authorities and stand up the European AI Office that will coordinate enforcement (expect meaningful fines for breaches).

At the same time Italy is shaping a national layer: the Senate approved AI Bill 1146/2024 on 20 March 2025 to align domestic law with the EU regime while adding sectoral safeguards (health, labour, public administration and “intellectual professions”), and it even requires some public‑sector AI to be hosted on servers within national territory - a national‑hosting rule that can change procurement and vendor choice overnight (the Italian Bill explains these hosting and sector rules).

The practical takeaway for Italian legal practice is clear: map which systems are GPAI or high‑risk, document human oversight and data flows, track national implementing decrees, and treat 2025 milestones as compliance deadlines rather than guidance.

Italy's AI Strategy 2024–2026 turns high‑level principles into a practical playbook for the next three years, centring on four clear pillars - research, public administration, enterprise and training - and backing them with targeted infrastructure and funding to make an “Italian way” of trustworthy AI real; the plan funds national data repositories, competence centres and an AI Foundation to coordinate pilots, promote interoperable public‑sector procurement and grow Italian large language models tuned to local language and values (see the official AgID summary and a concise legal briefing from DLA Piper).

For legal teams this matters because the strategy pairs regulation with capacity building: expect procurement guidance, dataset registries, sandboxes and upskilling programmes that change vendor choice, contract terms and due‑diligence expectations; it also unlocks financing - a public €1 billion investment fund (with potential private leverage) to incubate startups, labs and interoperable solutions - so advising clients on IP, data‑sharing and public tenders will be a front‑row practice area as Italy moves from policy to procurement and deployment.

“We are convinced that there can and must be an Italian way to artificial intelligence.”

Practical compliance for Italian law firms starts with a ruthless inventory: map every AI model, dataset and data flow, then classify each system by risk (minimal, limited, high‑risk or GPAI) so obligations land in the right bucket - see the EU AI Act summary for classification and provider/deployer duties (EU AI Act high‑level summary).

Next, treat impact assessments as non‑negotiable: where personal data is involved run a DPIA and where high‑risk uses arise prepare a Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment (FRIA), leveraging the DPIA where possible to avoid duplication (detailed analysis in the DPIA vs AI Act paper) (Impact Assessment requirements comparison).

Build and document a lifecycle risk‑management system - technical documentation, logging and human‑oversight procedures are core provider/deployer duties - and train staff to meet the AI literacy obligations that are already in force or coming soon; use the AI Act timetable as operational checkpoints (e.g., 2 Feb 2025, 2 Aug 2025) to prioritise actions (EU AI Act FAQ and key dates).

Finally, harden vendor due diligence (including authorised EU representatives for non‑EU providers), plan post‑market monitoring and incident reporting, and be audit‑ready for possible unannounced market‑surveillance inspections: missing these boxes risks regulatory enforcement and substantial fines, so convert this checklist into templates and evidence bundles today.

Employers using AI in recruitment or workplace monitoring must treat those systems as regulated tools, not conveniences: Italy's Transparency Decree (Legislative Decree 104/2022) requires written notice to employees (and to RSA/RSU or territorial trade unions) explaining the use, purpose and functioning of any automated decision‑making or monitoring system, and the Ministry of Labour's Circular No.

19 makes clear this applies where human intervention is only incidental (examples include chatbots, resume‑screeners, emotional‑recognition or productivity‑scoring tools) - see the concise summary on the new obligations in the Roedl briefing on the Transparency Decree (Roedl summary of Italy Transparency Decree obligations for employers).

GDPR and Article 22 protections mean employers must run risk analyses and DPIAs for profiling or fully automated decisions, and Italy's emerging AI rules plus the Data Protection Authority guidance and industry codes (e.g., the staff‑leasing Code of Conduct) push practical steps employers should already be taking: perform bias and validity audits, keep human‑in‑the‑loop review for hiring outcomes, harden vendor contracts and access to logs, train staff on AI literacy, and notify unions or secure labour‑office authorisations before broad monitoring is deployed - a short checklist of these measures is usefully gathered in the K&L Gates employer alert on hiring with AI (K&L Gates hiring with AI checklist and employer guidance for Italy).

Practically speaking, keep dated proof of delivery (Roedl requires retention of transmission/receipt evidence for five years after employment ends), document DPIAs and human‑oversight rules, and expect fines (administrative penalties per worker and stiffer sanctions where automated systems are involved);

the memorable takeaway: a “black box” CV screener without written notice, audit logs and a human sign‑off is not just risky - it can trigger complaints, fines and even criminal exposure for unlawful monitoring, so convert privacy and union notices into checklisted, evidenceable steps before any AI hire or monitoring pilot goes live.

For IP and copyright in Italy, the bright line remains human creativity: Law No. 633/1941 protects “works of authorship” that reflect an author's personal intellectual choices, so generative outputs are not automatically off the table but need a demonstrable, relevant human contribution to qualify - courts have already upheld this approach in the Sanremo digital‑art disputes, treating software as a tool whose use does not preclude protection if the human input predominates (see a clear legal primer on Italian copyright and AI from Canella Camaiora).

Practically, lawyers must advise clients to collect evidence of prompts, iterative edits and contractual terms with AI vendors, because the balance between the model's role and the user's creative effort decides authorship and economic rights; commentators and firms also flag alternative protections (trade secrets or sui generis rights) where copyright relief is uncertain (summary guidance from DLA Piper).

At the same time, the Italian AI law proposal would amend Article 1 to entrench protection “even if created with the aid of artificial intelligence tools, provided that the human contribution is creative, relevant and demonstrable,” and it contemplates new rules on text‑and‑data mining and clear labeling of AI‑generated deep fakes - so update IP clauses, preserve training‑data provenance, and demand prompt‑level logs now to turn creative collaborations with AI into defensible rights tomorrow (see the AI Law Proposal analysis for draft wording and media‑marking obligations).

“Creativity cannot be excluded solely because the work consists of simple ideas and notions that fall within the intellectual heritage of individuals experienced in the field; furthermore, creativity is not constituted by the idea itself, but by the form of its expression - its subjectivity…”

When AI systems cause harm in Italy, liability and market rules can land hard and fast: Article 2050 of the Civil Code effectively shifts the burden to operators of “dangerous” activities - scholars and Supreme Court cases describe it as a de facto strict‑liability regime that can make businesses deploying AI defend the adequacy of every precaution (Cardillo and Schäfer analysis of Article 2050 civil liability (SSRN paper)); at the same time boards must heed traditional duties of diligence (art.

2086), adapt OdV/Decreto 231 compliance programmes to cover AI risks, and build technical oversight into governance. Antitrust and market‑power questions are already front‑row: regulators worry about concentration across the AI stack, tying and exclusive algorithms, and the AI Act's market‑surveillance powers that can demand training data and source materials - issues the Garante and competition authorities are watching closely.

Finally, foreign investment rules add another layer: Italy's Golden Power screening treats AI and critical tech deals as notifiable, so M&A and cross‑border cloud arrangements can trigger government conditions or vetoes; the practical takeaway is clear - map liability exposure, harden boardrooms with AI expertise, and treat antitrust and FDI checks as routine parts of AI procurement and vendor strategy (Global Legal Insights: AI, Machine Learning & Big Data laws and regulations in Italy (2025)).

For legal professionals pivoting into AI work in Italy, salary expectations should be anchored to familiar legal pay bands rather than hyped AI specialist figures: the national average for a Legal Counsel sits around €69,240 a year while an In‑House Counsel in Milano averages about €71,280 (and can climb much higher in senior roles), so adding AI expertise tends to move lawyers up within these established brackets rather than into a separate pay scale - see the national Legal Counsel benchmarks and Milan figures for 2025 (Legal Counsel salary in Italy, In‑House Counsel salary in Milano).

Experience and qualifications still matter: junior counsels (0–2 years) average roughly €40k, while very experienced in‑house lawyers can exceed €100k, so targeted upskilling - practical AI literacy, vendor diligence and IP know‑how - is the lever that turns a mid‑career counsel into a high‑value AI‑savvy adviser (practical reskilling paths are covered in the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus).

In short: treat AI skills as a career accelerator inside established legal salary tiers, document your technical contributions, and use experience + demonstrable AI competence to unlock the top quartile of legal pay in Italy.

The sensible next steps for Italian legal teams boil down to three priorities: treat the EU AI Act as operational law (with GPAI and many high‑risk duties rolling out from 2 August 2025), lock down an evidenceable compliance playbook, and build human and technical capability fast - start by mapping every AI system, running DPIAs/FRIAs where profiling or high‑risk uses exist, formalising human‑in‑the‑loop rules and vendor due‑diligence, and recording hosting and data‑flow choices because national and procurement rules (and the Italian AI Bill debates) may demand local hosting or extra oversight (track the national picture via the White & Case Italy regulatory tracker).

Make implementation dates working deadlines, not reminders: the European timeline is now crystal clear (see the EU AI Act summary and enforcement updates) and national authorities must be designated under the Act as part of that rollout, so align governance, incident‑reporting and board education to the timetable.

Finally, convert capability gaps into a short, funded learning plan - practical AI literacy, prompt hygiene and vendor risk skills are the quickest risk reducers (consider targeted upskilling like the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp to turn policy into practice) - think of 2 August 2025 as a courtroom filing date: arrive prepared, with documentation, or expect regulatory scrutiny instead of calm compliance.

UIA: EU AI Act - What Lawyers Need to Know | White & Case: Italy AI Regulatory Tracker | Nucamp AI Essentials for Work - Registration (15-week bootcamp)