Avianca expands Harvey AI across its legal department

By Amara Osei

Avianca is rolling out Harvey’s legal AI platform across its legal department after a pilot trained 14 legal management units, Harvey announced on November 13, 2026.

Harvey’s announcement said Avianca’s legal organization works in Spanish, Portuguese and English on aviation, regulatory and commercial matters. Its remit covers Colombia, El Salvador and Brazil, alongside regional businesses including Cargo, Deprisa and LifeMiles.

The rollout reaches a multilingual function that crosses national borders and operating lines, Harvey said. Lawyers handle varied day-to-day matters spanning aviation-specific work and broader regulatory and transactional issues, according to the announcement.

“At Avianca, we are accelerating the digital transformation of our legal department by adopting artificial intelligence to strengthen legal management, compliance, and organizational efficiency. Harvey gives our lawyers the tools to work more efficiently and build on the collective knowledge of our legal organization,” said Richard Galindo, Avianca’s chief legal officer.

Harvey linked the deployment to Avianca’s more than 100 years of history and the legal expertise developed across its markets. The company said the workflow rests on materials Avianca already owns, making existing institutional knowledge the foundation for AI-assisted work.

Which documents can Harvey search?

Harvey’s Vault lets lawyers search and build on aircraft lease and maintenance clause libraries, regulatory filings, framework contracts and M&A documents, Harvey said.

The collections cover terms governing aircraft leases and maintenance alongside Avianca’s regulatory and commercial work. Harvey said lawyers can retrieve prior material and develop it further without shifting the system’s reference point away from Avianca’s own files.

Vault grounds document search in Avianca’s lease, regulatory and contract libraries rather than generic models, the company said. According to Harvey, that design places aviation-specific terminology and the airline’s accumulated legal knowledge at the center of retrieval.

How does Harvey fit into Word?

Harvey’s Word add-in enables lawyers to draft and review directly in Word, the company said. Its comparison function checks clauses against Avianca’s standards, giving each review an internal reference supplied by the legal organization.

Vault and the add-in address complementary stages of document work, Harvey said. Vault provides searchable source collections for development; the add-in supports drafting, clause comparison and review within the document itself.

Avianca’s standards remain the benchmark for that comparison, according to Harvey. Lawyers can use internal clause references while shaping new documents and checking existing language against positions established by the legal organization.

Harvey said the integration links document retrieval with drafting and review inside Avianca’s legal organization. According to Harvey, Avianca’s lawyers can move from internal collections to clause-level work with the company’s own materials still serving as the reference.

What did the pilot establish?

Harvey and Avianca worked together through security and AI governance reviews during the pilot, Harvey said. The process paired tailored instruction for 14 legal management units with institutional review before broader use.

Harvey said training and oversight became components of the operating model before wider use. The sequence covered user preparation and governance checks as access expanded beyond the original pilot.

Harvey co-founder and CEO Winston Weinberg said the companies worked closely to bring the platform into Avianca’s everyday legal work. Harvey’s announcement said the rollout centers on existing documents, internal clause standards and the legal organization’s review practices.

Harvey said the arrangement makes Avianca’s accumulated legal knowledge part of the AI workflow itself. Lawyers can retrieve and develop internal collections, then use the Word tools for drafting and clause-level review.

Harvey framed the open question as consistency across the department’s varied matters. The shared foundation must serve Spanish, Portuguese and English work across Colombia, El Salvador and Brazil while keeping Avianca’s own clause standards central to drafting and review.