Navigating the Odyssey of AI-Powered Contract Management: Key Tools and Strategies for …

“As the sail bellied out with the wind, the ship flew through the deep blue water, and the foam hissed against her bows as she sped onward.”

– Homer, The Odyssey

With the breakneck pace that AI seems to be moving, if everything we’re reading about the technology holds true, the process of evaluating your contracts’ workflows while trying to stay afloat of current trends can certainly feel like an “odyssey.” Whether an organization is in a growth phase or trying to find better ways to improve on current processes it’s vital to ensure the right people are doing the right things, at the right time. There are a plethora of useful tools available that can enhance the process at every stage. Here’s a quick breakdown of how departments like legal operations and procurement are leveraging AI in contract management today.

Transparency and Communication

Many different departments in any organization play a role in the contract process. This can include procurement, sales, operations, compliance, and legal among others. To build a consensus enterprise-wide and to ensure the obligations of the contract are being me requires a process that enables enterprise-wide visibility. Having a central system that manages contracts is vital to ensure the right folks have eyes on these important documents when needed.

Mitigating Risk

By having a database that’s accessible to the organization at large, it allows the right folks to have these documents at their fingertips. An important tool that’s also broadly under this category is the ability of the software to send automatic alerts and escalations. This ensures important triggers and deadlines aren’t missed due to any oversight.

Searching and Data Extraction

AI tools available to us currently allow some robust search features to find certain keywords in a contract database. These tools also allow for the extraction of data that’s common to most contracts like the names of the parties, starting and end dates, and payment amounts. This functionality also has the ability to build a database of similar clauses that can be used for comparison and future contract drafting.

Translation

Machine translation has become a common tool that is easily utilized these days. It’s no surprise that it’s being used in the contract management realm as well. Although it does have some inherent limitations we’re still seeing broad usage by international corporations to distill general terms and dates from their contracts. It can also be a useful tool for corporate secretary departments that are tasked with entity management across the world and machine translation performs well with documents like articles of incorporation.

Workflow Automation

Depending on the nature, risk, and cost associated with any given contract it can often go through multiple departments and escalation points. In addition to seeking guidance from legal or risk management other internal stakeholders in the line of business often need to give their input. Having these escalations automated in the system and a well-documented and tracked approval process can often speed up the process and ensure there are appropriate checks and balances in place.

Leveraging AI in contracts management can have significant positive impacts. Whether you’re looking to automate repetitive tasks, extract key data from current contracts, or streamline your approvals process, there are ways to use current technology to benefit your teams.