The Future of Agreements Starts with AI

Are you tired of hearing about the AI revolution? We get it. 

AI’s “far-reaching and impactful effects” have been touted by everyone from doctors to tech CEOs. AI is impressive and is changing our world every day, whether we see it or not. However, not all AI experiences and use cases have demonstrated value that’s tangible and consistent. So, you may be asking, “How can I tap into the value and benefits that AI brings to the table?” 

Simple: start with the areas where you are most in need of productivity improvements. 

Agreement management is a great example to consider because the data in and around agreements touch every aspect of business operations and is often a tedious and time-consuming process. The potential intelligence and efficiency gains across your sales, CX, legal, and other teams are huge, but they can’t materialize without a proper data framework and careful consideration of each team. Before AI, manual review and input were required to extract any information or measure performance. That manual burden made it nearly impossible to gain real-time insights, let alone cross-reference that data across the enterprise effectively. 

Now, AI has changed everything. We can measure CRM data against agreement data to ensure we're not leaving revenue like pricing escalators or bonus payments on the table. We can also measure ERP data against agreement data to manage critical financial metrics like contract value leakage through information on missed renewals and working cost of capital, and through information on early payments.

In a recent webinar, Mark Ross, principal at Deloitte, and Shanthi Iyer, Docusign EVP and chief information officer, detail how AI can make your entire agreement process more efficient, including: 

• Analyzing your contract portfolio to uncover hidden value and manage updates at scale

• Accelerating contract creation and management

• Streamlining obligation management

• The real-world impact exemplified by a market-leading recruitment SaaS company

The power of contract data: Unlocking the strategic business asset

Every contract your company initiates is a strategic business asset brimming with valuable information. That is, if you have the means to unlock the data that it holds. AI, particularly generative AI, is proving to be the key.

As Ross highlighted, we've been in a “perfect storm” of change over the last few years regarding contract management. This storm–from burgeoning regulatory environments and the rise of legal operations to the elevated role of the chief legal officer–has set the stage for AI to become an indispensable ally.

Imagine effortlessly identifying revenue leakage, benchmarking performance against industry standards, or proactively managing obligations. This is the promise of AI-powered contract management. By integrating AI into Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) technology and connecting it with enterprise systems like ERP, CRM, and HR platforms, organizations can gain profound insights that were previously unattainable. 

“When you have these colossal volumes of legacy contracts that need to be modified in response to a regulatory event in order to remain compliant, throwing humans at the problem isn't the most cost-efficient way to solve it,” said Ross.  “Now we have the promise of generative AI truly helping us impact that problem statement in a much more efficient way.”

Iyer emphasized the importance of this data, explaining that "every customer wants to understand and unleash the potential of data in various ways, whether it is cost savings for procurement or driving growth for a sales organization." She shared a compelling example with iCIMS, a company that helps thousands of organizations worldwide scale their recruiting programs and serves 2.7 million global users. iCIMS approached Docusign with a common problem: they were at the mercy of email, which caused version issues and a struggle to find existing agreements, leading to significant internal drag. The implementation of Docusign CLM with iCIMS presented a huge opportunity to address these challenges and unlock the potential within their vast agreement data.

AI as a co-pilot: Navigating the entire agreement journey

Here’s a breakdown of how efficient AI can make your entire agreement process: 

Creation 

While “70% of the friction points in contracting happen pre-signature,” as Ross pointed out, AI is stepping in as a powerful co-pilot to make these manual challenges less prominent. 

Iyer shared how Docusign's AI Assisted Review helps legal teams draft clauses, recommend language, and ensure adherence to standard terms, speeding up the negotiation process and reducing manual errors. The vision extends to AI seamlessly assisting with redlining, drafting, and template management, making the creation phase far more agile and intelligent. Iyer added that Docusign is aiming for AI to be pervasive in every step of the creation phase. “Whether it’s redlining, negotiating back-and-forth, agreement preparation, adding or searching for clauses, template management… all of this should be AI-powered, that’s the goal."

Commitment and management 

The real cost and effort in contracting often lie in the post-signature phase. Reconciling invoices, resolving disputes, managing renewals, and tracking obligations are areas ripe for AI intervention. Iyer said that by leveraging AI for obligation management and proactively identifying critical terms like payment conditions or discount levels, businesses can significantly reduce waste and enhance proactive decision-making. This transforms the often reactive approach into a forward-thinking, AI-augmented strategy. iCIMS's experience clearly demonstrates the benefits of this integrated approach. Post-implementation of CLM, an impressive 78% of their agreements no longer require legal intervention. Furthermore, iCIMS achieved a remarkable 5x growth in their custom agreements while maintaining control over their turnaround time, demonstrating a sizable improvement in speed and efficiency for complex contracts.

The human element: Steering the AI revolution with trust and purpose

While AI automates and optimizes, the human element remains essential. The role of legal, procurement, and IT teams is evolving, not diminishing. Instead of being bogged down by tedious, repetitive tasks, humans can now focus on higher-value activities.

Here are a few that Ross and Iyer shared: 

• Strategic vision: Ross sees the human impact in "facilitating a change in perception where contracts themselves become viewed as strategic business assets." 

• Collaboration: Fostering a more collaborative and efficient contracting process that becomes a "calling card" for the business. This was evident at iCIMS, where empowered sales teams and streamlined workflows with professional services leadership ensured agreements reached the right people at the right time.

• Quality control: Iyer advises treating AI agents like humans when it comes to mistakes. She stresses the importance of putting "a set of controls and checks and balances in place for what to do when an agent makes a mistake." 

Ultimately, the goal of integrating AI into agreement management extends beyond mere efficiency gains. As Iyer advises, it's about "really going deep, solving for a customer problem, and not applying technology for the sake of it." 

Driving growth through customer-centric AI

AI can help create a superior experience for employees, customers, and partners by simplifying workflows, offering guided processes, and proactively surfacing critical insights. The success story of iCIMS perfectly illustrates how leveraging AI in agreement management can lead to significant improvements in efficiency, turnaround time, and legal team capacity. As AI continues to evolve, the future of agreements will be defined by intelligent automation working hand-in-hand with human ingenuity, building a foundation of trust and driving unprecedented growth.

Watch the full webinar here.