Relativity aiR for Review in 2026 -- capabilities, pricing, and honest review
Updated 21 April 2026 | Independent reference | Not legal advice
October 2025 pricing reset
At Relativity Fest (October 2025), Relativity announced aiR for Review and aiR for Privilege would be included in RelativityOne subscriptions at no additional charge from early 2026. This changed the competitive calculus: AI capability is no longer a premium add-on for RelativityOne customers.
What Relativity aiR actually is
Relativity aiR is not a single product -- it is a suite of three AI capabilities built into the RelativityOne cloud platform. Understanding the distinction between them matters for procurement and validation planning.
- aiR for Review: LLM-scored relevance for document review. The attorney writes a natural-language issue description; the LLM scores documents against it. Works alongside, not replacing, the classical CAL classifier. Launched 2023, matured significantly in 2024-2025. As of April 2026, it uses an OpenAI-based model (GPT-4 architecture) under a zero-retention enterprise agreement.
- aiR for Privilege: LLM-assisted privilege detection. The model identifies privilege signals: attorney names, legal advice language, work product indicators, and forwarded-chain privilege propagation. Accuracy is higher than aiR for Review on most document types, with published benchmarks showing 88-95% first-pass privilege detection. This is the strongest competitive differentiator for aiR versus Everlaw's privilege module.
- aiR for Case Strategy: Case-level analytics: document clustering, timeline reconstruction, custodian mapping. This is closer to the “agentic” tier than the other two products. Available to select partners and enterprise customers as of April 2026, not yet generally available.
Pricing after the October 2025 reset
| Component | Pricing (April 2026) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| RelativityOne base subscription | ~$11-13/GB/mo | Variable by volume tier and term |
| aiR for Review | Included (from early 2026) | Previously ~$2-3/GB/mo add-on |
| aiR for Privilege | Included (from early 2026) | Previously ~$1.50-2/GB/mo add-on |
| User licenses | Separate (per seat) | Variable by access level |
| Processing fees | Separate | Per-GB ingestion and processing |
| Hosting (inactive data) | Separate (reduced rate) | Cold storage vs active review tier |
Indicative. Last verified April 2026. Confirm with Relativity.
Strengths
- Ecosystem depth. The RelativityOne ecosystem (processing, analytics, review, production, redaction in one tenant) eliminates data-movement overhead and simplifies chain-of-custody. The partner network (HaystackID, Consilio, Lighthouse, Epiq) means enterprise matters can be staffed with specialist services without platform switching.
- aiR for Privilege accuracy. Published benchmarks and practitioner reports consistently rate aiR for Privilege higher than most alternatives on forwarded-chain privilege propagation, which is the hardest privilege detection problem in typical corporate litigation.
- Reviewer adoption. The aiR interface is embedded in the existing review workspace; reviewers do not need to change their workflow. AI relevance scores appear alongside the document, not in a separate interface.
- Post-2025 value. Including aiR at no additional charge substantially improves the per-GB economics for high-volume matters where AI review would previously have added $3-5/GB to the cost.
Weaknesses
- RelativityOne only. aiR is not available on Relativity Server. Firms with data-residency requirements, GDPR Article 44+ transfer restrictions on EU data, or on-premises requirements cannot access aiR features.
- LLM provider dependency. aiR is OpenAI-based as of April 2026. Firms with model-provider restrictions (common in financial services, government, and some healthcare organizations) need to verify whether their acceptable-use policy permits sending matter documents through OpenAI's enterprise API.
- Reasoning trace export is partial. Per-document reasoning traces (the LLM's explanation of a relevance determination) are available through a structured JSON API to some Relativity partners, but not to all tenants as a standard export. For matters where the opposing party or the court may require explanation of the AI methodology, this is a gap.
- Cost at small scale. At $11-13/GB/month, a 500 GB matter costs approximately $55,000-78,000 per month for data storage and review access alone. For small firm matters, Logikcull at $1,500-3,500 flat fee is meaningfully cheaper even with less AI capability.
Who it is for
Relativity is the right platform for AmLaw 200 and large boutique litigation firms with multi-matter portfolios and existing Relativity workflows, large in-house legal departments that run multiple investigations and regulatory matters in parallel, and enterprise lit-support vendors (HaystackID, Consilio, Lighthouse, Epiq) whose clients expect the Relativity environment. If your firm has ten or more attorneys coding documents on Relativity today, the cost of switching platforms is high and the benefit of the aiR inclusion is real.
When to choose alternatives
- Small or mid-size firm without existing Relativity workflow: consider Everlaw or Logikcull.
- Firm with strong deposition prep requirements: Everlaw's Deposition Analyzer is ahead of aiR for Case Strategy at general availability.
- Firm wanting fully auditable reasoning traces per document: Lighthouse or Nuix Neo are ahead on trace export.
- Firm with OpenAI vendor restrictions: Everlaw (proprietary model) or Nuix Neo (Nuix-tuned model) avoid OpenAI dependency.
- Single matter under 500 GB: the per-GB economics do not justify Relativity vs Logikcull flat-fee.
Frequently asked questions
Is Relativity aiR available on Relativity Server?
No. aiR for Review and aiR for Privilege are RelativityOne cloud features only as of April 2026. Firms on Relativity Server are not eligible. This is a significant limitation for firms with data-residency requirements that preclude cloud hosting.
What LLM does Relativity aiR use?
aiR uses an OpenAI-based model (GPT-4 architecture) under a zero-retention enterprise agreement as of April 2026. Prompts and document content are not retained for model training. Firms with OpenAI-specific restrictions should verify compliance before deploying aiR on client matters.
Does aiR replace the human reviewer?
No. aiR provides relevance scores and privilege signals that the attorney-reviewer uses to prioritize their coding. FRCP 26(g) requires attorney sign-off on the review process. ABA Formal Opinion 512 requires supervision of non-lawyer tools including AI. The productivity gain is significant; the attorney responsibility is unchanged.
What is the difference between aiR for Review and aiR for Privilege?
aiR for Review scores documents for issue relevance based on a natural-language prompt. aiR for Privilege detects privilege signals: attorney-client communications, work product indicators, and forwarded-chain privilege. The two products run independently and can be used on the same document set.
Can I export the reasoning trace from aiR?
Partially. Per-document reasoning traces are available through a structured JSON API to some Relativity partner organizations, but are not a standard tenant-level export as of April 2026. For matters where attorney-explainability of AI determinations is required, confirm this capability with your Relativity account team before committing to the platform.