Think about the simplest contract you’ve ever signed. Maybe for renting a car, or buying a new phone. Even that process—flipping through pages of conditions, hoping for the best while you sign your name in all the right places—can be frustrating.
And contracts don’t get any easier in the corporate world. When you consider SOWs, MSAs, leases, and other agreements—it’s like you take your new phone contract and multiply it exponentially, right? We’re talking hundreds of pages of legalese in some cases, and it can be overwhelming for the most competent teams. Still, C-suite executives, general counsels, and sales teams alike will tell you that well-composed contracts are essential for any company that wants to do business safely and effectively.
But what about companies that also want to work efficiently? The consensus seems to be that contracts just hurt. They require hours upon hours of valuable manual labor. Even the best legal team has to peruse every word of every contract, dismantling dense phrases and questioning the semantics of run-on sentences in order to discern the nature of company relationships. According to the Harvard Business Review, firms can lose up to 40% of value on any given deal because of how laborious the contracting process is.
But there has to be a better way to manage the contracting needs of companies juggling countless contracts from a wide array of vendors. So we created IntelAgree, a platform that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to accomplish the most painstaking tasks in your contract management process with accuracy and speed. But that’s largely a story for another day. For now, let’s talk technology.
Don’t be scared by the idea of AI. (We know—things got a little crazy in the Terminator movies. We’re not trying to take over the world! We just want to make the world a better place to work.) AI makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs, and perform human-like tasks. That way, people can focus on higher-level duties that require human attention. AI relies heavily on deep learning and natural language processing, and it powers programs from chess-playing computers to self-driving cars.
From automated shopping assistants to medical records management, AI is helping businesses around the world shift into high gear, and it’s allowing employees to work smarter in fast-paced and evolving businesses.
Humans are, after all, brilliant problem-solvers, but they’re not always the most efficient when confronted with vast quantities of data. This is where AI makes a difference. It’s able to consume incredible amounts of data, far more data than any human ever could, and reach intuitive conclusions. And that’s why AI document readers are becoming so popular.
When a company properly trains its AI systems by providing inputs and tracking outcomes, its AI gets continually smarter. The AI develops the ability to make the right choices more and more often. When we couple that AI decision-making with the incredible processing power of technology, AI can tackle arduous, data-heavy problems…like contracts.
Many companies are burdened by the sheer number of contracts they have to keep track of. And it doesn’t help that these contracts are often large and difficult to update due to their lack of uniformity.
AI-powered automated contract review software like IntelAgree can help companies maintain consistent terms and language across all of their contracts. Companies can specify exactly how certain provisions should (and shouldn’t!) be worded, and then have the system alert them when actual contract language deviates too far from that wording. This significantly reduces time spent reviewing and drafting contracts, and it can help keep legal agreements clean and reliable.
Our software harnesses the power of AI document analysis to easily extract data and clarify the content of contracts. IntelAgree can read through 150 pages of dense legal language and instantly flag what is important based on company-specific criteria that you set. It can also help spot inconsistencies within an existing contract portfolio. Like a fine-toothed comb, the software doesn’t miss a thing. And again, the more that the AI is used, the smarter it will become in spotting potential problems and recommending potential solutions.
AI can help businesses manage their contracts and improve their workflow substantially. Instead of immediately dedicating precious resources to time-consuming contract reviews, departments can operate nimbly and focus on their immediate tasks. This leaves the AI-powered software free for parsing the contract’s language.
The proper implementation of AI-powered contract management software like IntelAgree takes some time, but the tools it offers become increasingly effective the more that they’re used — and, amazingly, it never forgets a thing. (Something even the smartest humans are prone to do!) AI can save time, execute strenuous tasks, and make room for employees to do the essential work of solving complex problems. All told, AI can help companies thrive.
Want to see how IntelAgree’s intelligent contract management software can help your business? Reach out now and schedule a demo with us today.
