The One Minute Discovery Challenge: From 281,000 Documents to One Report in 60 Seconds
By John Tredennick
Last week, we set out to test the limits of AI-driven discovery. The question was simple: Could Merlin Alchemy take an impossible discovery assignment and complete it in one minute?
We called it The One Minute Discovery Challenge—and the results were nothing short of extraordinary.
The Challenge
Imagine you’re on BP’s trial team for the Deepwater Horizon case. The partner bursts into your office:
“I need analysis on all testimony about the decision to proceed with mud displacement despite failed pressure tests. Who made the call? What warnings were ignored? What did BP know—and when?”
The closing argument is due tomorrow. You have 281,000 documents to sift through. Only 9,300 come from the actual trial. The rest is noise.
Traditionally, this would mean long nights of keyword searches, manual review, and caffeine-fueled scrolling through transcripts. Days—if not weeks—of work.
With Alchemy, we did it in 60 seconds.
What Happened
We pasted the full research question directly into Alchemy’s prompt window. No Boolean strings. No filters. Just plain English.
Alchemy went to work:
Found the 100 most relevant documents out of 281,000 files in under 10 seconds
Used Gemini Flash Lite to summarize all 100 documents in 11 seconds
Then called on Claude Sonnet 4.5 to synthesize a comprehensive report
From start to finish: 60 seconds.
Total cost: Under $5.
Result: A 15-page report, downloaded in Word—ready for the partner’s closing argument.
Why It Matters
This wasn’t a simulation. Alchemy analyzed real materials from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Trial, one of the most complex cases in modern litigation. In less than a minute, it produced an evidence-based, citation-rich report—work that would normally take a team days to complete.
The implications are profound. Alchemy doesn’t just retrieve documents; it helps you understand what the full record shows. That’s the new frontier of discovery—speed, accuracy, and insight at a scale never before possible.
281,000 documents. 100 key files. 1 report. 60 seconds.
Cost: Under $5.
Result: A stronger argument—and a free evening.
About the Author
John Tredennick (jt@merlin.tech) is the CEO and Founder of Merlin Search Technologies, a software company leveraging generative AI and cloud technologies to make investigation and discovery workflow faster, easier, and less expensive. Prior to founding Merlin, Tredennick had a distinguished career as a trial lawyer and litigation partner at a national law firm.
With his expertise in legal technology, he founded Catalyst in 2000, an international ediscovery technology company that was acquired in 2019 by a large public company. Tredennick regularly speaks and writes on legal technology and AI topics, and has authored eight books and dozens of articles. He has also served as Chair of the ABA’s Law Practice Management Section.