AI contract review platforms use a combination of technologies, primarily Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning, to understand and interpret legal language. Here’s a breakdown of the typical process:
- Document Ingestion: The system ingests various document formats like PDFs or Word files. Sometimes when the document is a scan, for example, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used to make the text searchable and analyzable.
- Data Extraction: The AI extracts key information, such as type of contract, party names, jurisdiction. It identifies and organizes key clauses, like termination conditions, confidentiality agreements, and dispute resolution mechanisms.
- Risk Assessment: The AI compares the contract against the AI’s rules (usually refelctig the modern common law and industry standards) and contract playbooks that are uploaded by the user. It then flags non-standard or high-risk clauses, inconsistencies, and potential compliance issues, providing a risk score.
- Suggestions and Summaries: The platform can generate summaries of lengthy contracts and suggest revisions or alternative language based on the analysis. This includes automatic redlining and editing features.
- Human Oversight: While AI handles the initial, repetitive review, a human professional (a lawyer or contract manager) provides the final review and judgment. Think of the AI as a good “first pass”.
Key Features and Benefits of AI Contract Review🎯
AI contract review software offers a range of features that provide significant advantages:
Features
- Clause Identification: Automatically finds and categorizes specific clauses.
- Risk Detection: Flags unusual or unfavorable terms.
- Redlines: Automatically amends or adds text to the document.
- Chat: Context aware chat with a contract.
- Version Comparison: Highlights changes between different drafts of a contract.
- Plain-Language Explanations: Translates legal jargon into simple, understandable terms.
- Collaboration Tools: Enables multiple stakeholders to work on the same document in real time.
- Integration: Many platforms integrate with popular tools like Microsoft Word, Salesforce, and other contract lifecycle management (CLM) systems.
Benefits
- Time and Cost Savings: Automating the initial review process drastically reduces the time it takes to analyze contracts, which can lead to significant cost reductions in legal fees and labor hours.
- Improved Accuracy: AI can help reduce human errors like missing a critical clause or misinterpreting a complex term.
- Enhanced Efficiency: By automating routine tasks, AI allows legal teams to focus on more strategic, high-value work, such as drafting client specific key clauses, negotiation and transacting.
- Scalability: Businesses may now be able to handle a higher volume of contracts without needing to expand their legal team.
Top AI Contract Review Platforms for Businesses 🏢
Many AI contract review platforms are geared towards enterprise-level clients, but several options cater to the needs of all businesses with a focus on affordability and ease of use. These platforms often provide features like intuitive interfaces, simple setup, and transparent pricing. Popular choices include:
- goHeather: Built specifically for SMEs and small law firmss, offering a user-friendly platform with no long-term contracts.
- LegalOn: Offers attorney-built playbooks to help streamline the review process for in-house legal teams.
All-in-One Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)
These platforms provide comprehensive, end-to-end solutions that handle every stage of a contract's life, from drafting and negotiation to post-signature management and renewal. The AI review component is a key feature within a broader system.
- Sirion: An enterprise-grade platform focusing on complex, large-scale contract lifecycle management, including robust AI-native features for analysis.
- Ironclad: Known for its AI-powered workflow automation, it streamlines the entire contract process for both legal and business teams.
- ContractPodAi: Offers an all-in-one CLM platform with an AI assistant that can flag risky clauses, suggest redlines, and run compliance checks.
AI-First Review and Drafting
These solutions are primarily focused on the core tasks of reviewing and drafting contracts. They often integrate directly with tools like Microsoft Word, providing a powerful, specialized assistant without requiring a full CLM platform.
- goHeather: A user-friendly and affordable option. It provides lawyer-trained AI insights and redlining features with a focus on ease of use. This tool is designed specifically for lawyers and businesses and is a standout for its guardrails, DIY playbooks and direct integration into Microsoft Word, allowing users to draft, review, and redline contracts without switching platforms.
- LegalOn: Uses attorney-built playbooks and AI guardrails to provide pre-built templates for review, offering precise, redline-ready suggestions.
For High-Volume Review and Analytics
These platforms excel at analyzing thousands of documents at once, making them ideal for large-scale projects like due diligence for mergers and acquisitions or portfolio-wide risk assessments.
- Kira Systems (Litera): A long-standing player in the market, Kira is recognized for its accuracy in extracting clauses and provisions at a massive scale.
- Evisort (Workday Contract Intelligence): Excels at reviewing large volumes of contracts to uncover hidden obligations and risks across an entire portfolio.
- Luminance: Strong in anomaly detection and compliance mapping, making it a popular choice for complex, cross-border reviews and due diligence.
Company Spotlight
goHeather
goHeather is a prominent AI-first platform designed to assist with contract review and drafting. It focuses on providing a streamlined, lawyer-trained AI assistant directly to users without the need for a full-scale contract lifecycle management (CLM) system. This makes it particularly appealing to small businesses, solo practitioners, and individuals who need a powerful, yet affordable, tool for contract analysis.
Key Features 🔑
- Microsoft Word Integration: goHeather offers an add-in for Microsoft Word, which is a major convenience. This allows you to review and redline contracts directly within the familiar Word environment, saving you from having to switch between applications.
- Plain-Language Explanations: The platform doesn't just flag risky clauses; it provides simple, easy-to-understand explanations for why a clause is a problem. This helps users, especially those without a legal background, grasp complex legal concepts.
- Custom Playbooks: Users can create their own "playbooks" to train the AI on specific company policies or preferences. This ensures that the AI's suggestions and analysis are consistent with your business standards.
- Redlining and Suggestions: The AI can instantly suggest redlines and alternative language for problematic clauses. You can apply these changes with a single click, which dramatically speeds up the negotiation process.
- Jurisdiction and Side-Aware: The AI is trained to understand different common-law jurisdictions and can tailor its insights based on whether your company is the client, vendor, or another party in the contract.
- AI Chat with Contract: This feature allows you to ask the AI specific questions about your contract and receive context-aware answers, providing a more interactive and dynamic review experience.
Why goHeather is Top Choice for Businesses 👩💼
goHeather's appeal lies in its simplicity and focus on affordability. Unlike many enterprise-grade platforms that require long-term contracts and complex onboarding processes, goHeather offers a straightforward monthly subscription model. This makes professional-grade AI contract review accessible without a significant financial commitment.
Try goHeather's Contract Review AI Platform instantly - no demo is required.
