It could be internal dedup. in MS Compliance or a hidden journaling rule. What most IT "experts" see in the front-end Admin. tools is just the tip the iceberg. If the collections weren’t done using PowerShell checks, it could be incomplete.
1
Cloud export <> initial content search?
For now, we think AI:lawyer::associate:partner. Some eDiscovery software has more-developed technology-assisted review (TAR) tools, sometimes referred to as AI tools. Some of these – like sentiment analysis – can be really useful if you know the proper use cases. Clients are always surprised by the limitations of AI. For example, if you are dealing with data from organized crime or tech bros., AI may struggle to figure out how to handle people speaking in code. Because sometimes the “choppers” only “dance” if the “blues” are “loud enough.” Which obviously means the automatic weapons will only participate in the transaction if a sufficient amount of (blue-face, new-mint) hundred-dollar bills are exchanged. Well, maybe not obvious to an AI.
2
AI replacing lawyers?
It depends. Some eDiscovery software is great for standard reviews while keeping the monthly costs relatively low and relatively fixed.  Some solutions are good for managing big, distributed review teams (like if you employ a lower-cost, internationally-located team of JDs).  And so on.
3
Which review platform?
Ouch. You shouldn't, since that data isn't unique or important to search through. Get those productions offline as soon as practical. Just make sure to ask your PM for an overlay or custom field of Bates label data.
4
Hosting fees on productions?
Wow. Well, hopefully you can go to the Court with your well-crafted Request for Production, point to your definitions or ESI protocol section, and explain how that production is non-compliant and far enough away from reasonable industry standards to get an order compelling better responses. If we helped you draft the Request, you could definitely do the Court-thing we just described.
5
1,000 pgs. .pdf production?
That's why you need to hire us; the earlier the better.
6
You didn't know?

eDiscovery Services

eDiscovery is crazy expensive. About a $20Bn annual spend in just the US, and close to 70% of all litigation costs. For us, the best part of our job is figuring out a shortcut in this expensive process. It’s like finding a loophole in the rules that unstacks the deck against you and stacks it against the House. Like you, we aren’t sure who the “House” is in that analogy … maybe litigation costs, generally? For our clients, sharing our joy at gaming systems translates into money saved – sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per month in a single case. Savings can come from all sorts of places. Here are two examples of shortcuts we have employed: (1) automating collection workflows, especially ongoing collections (e.g. for ongoing reporting duties during a regulatory investigation) and (2) minimizing monthly data footprints — sometimes on the front-end by being very clever with inclusion parameters and sometimes on the tail-end by offloading cold data-sets from a platform. From acting as an eDiscovery liaison to jailbreaking a hostile custodian's device to try performing a forensic collection, we can help.

Here are some questions you might have. We hope our responses give you a sense of our competence.

Respectfully,
The Lawgical Team
Highlight?
Big savings.