What is Contract Intelligence?

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What is Contract Intelligence and How Can it Help You?

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Amidst the digital evolution reshaping businesses, Contract Intelligence emerges as a game-changer, turning static contracts into dynamic assets driven by artificial intelligence (AI). Contracts, long perceived as mere repositories of agreements, now beckon a transformative wave. With AI-enhanced platforms dedicated to contracts, not only have they become more dynamic, but they’re also revolutionizing how businesses view and manage these crucial documents.

Contract intelligence stands at the forefront of this digital transformation. Elevating contracts from mere transactional documents, this approach taps into the dynamic potential of artificial intelligence, transforming contracts into strategic assets capable of driving decisions, growth, and unparalleled efficiency.

Today, only 20% of businesses say automating tasks such as invoicing and contract validation is the second most crucial use of AI. However, one reason for the slower adoption of artificial intelligence in contract management is the lack of awareness and pervading confusion about what is contract lifecycle management and what is an intelligent contract.

Contracts need to be intelligent. When there’s such a huge volume of terms and conditions available about a variety of contractors in a number of contexts, it only makes sense that the data is utilized for purposes other than just management. Intelligent contracts channel artificial intelligence tools for analyzing contracts so that the contracts become valuable insights for organizations.

Download eBook: Contract Management Trends 2023

What is Contract Intelligence?

Contract intelligence is the transformative practice of extracting, analyzing, and leveraging critical data from contracts. Rather than viewing contracts as static, legal necessities, contract intelligence perceives them as dynamic repositories of valuable insights. Through specialized software, essential clauses, terms, and obligations are identified, pulled out, and transformed into structured data. This data then undergoes real-time analysis, pinpointing patterns, predicting risks, and offering actionable recommendations.

Contract intelligence can be termed as the next level of contract lifecycle management that involves generating insightful reports and analytics based on the existing data in the system. Contract intelligence that way is more than just contract management. It involves assessment, analysis, and insight generation of the contract life cycles that aid in future decision-making and bring about overall efficiency.

Is There an AI for Contracts?

The notion of artificial intelligence (AI) often conjures up images of futuristic landscapes and smart robots. But AI’s footprint extends far beyond just robotics or virtual assistants. Contracts, traditionally perceived as static legal documents, are undergoing a metamorphosis, all thanks to AI. The answer to the pressing question “Is there an AI for contracts?” is a resounding yes!

Role of AI in Contract Intelligence

The integration of AI into the contract landscape is more than just a technological upgrade; it’s the cornerstone of contract intelligence solutions. But what exactly does AI bring to the table? Let’s dissect the role of AI in enhancing contract intelligence platforms.

01. Comprehensive Analysis

Traditionally, contract analysis was a labor-intensive task, prone to human error and oversight. AI, with its algorithms and machine learning capabilities, can sift through contracts, identify key clauses, and extract essential data with impeccable accuracy. This ensures that every contract, irrespective of its length or complexity, is thoroughly examined.

02. Predictive Insights

Beyond just understanding the present, AI-driven contract intelligence platform can predict the future. By analyzing historical contract data, AI can identify trends, project future contract risks, or even recommend optimal terms for future agreements. This predictive nature enables businesses to be proactive rather than reactive.

03. Automation and Efficiency

AI streamlines the contract lifecycle. From drafting and reviewing to monitoring compliance, AI automates repetitive tasks, significantly reducing the time and resources required, ensuring that contract management is swift and efficient.

04. Risk Management

Contracts, if misinterpreted or overlooked, can pose significant risks. AI aids in risk mitigation by flagging potential issues, ensuring compliance, and even suggesting corrective measures based on pre-defined standards and historical data.

05. Enhanced Accessibility

With AI, searching for specific clauses, terms, or any data within contracts becomes instantaneous. Natural language processing, a subset of AI, allows users to query their contract database in plain English and retrieve relevant information in seconds.

Contract Intelligence Platforms are Amplified by AI

The emergence of AI-enhanced contract intelligence software has enabled companies to extract more value, insights, and foresights from their contractual documents. AI has transformed several aspects of a business, particularly the management and handling of corporate and legal contracts. Following are some ways in which AI has amplified the power of contract management solutions:

01. Contract Setup

AI can be used to accelerate the process of setting up contracts through access to a template repository that lists clauses sourced from existing contracts across industries. A contract management software structures new contracts by combining the insights and references of similar documents or the nature of the contract. Each additional contract that gets added into the system further feeds new data and insights, helping the platform evolve as you go.

02. Efficient Obligation Management

The whole point of a contract intelligence platform is being able to manage obligations with a few clicks. Obligations are mainly commitments that two parties make with each other and may take the form of service level agreements (SLAs) as per industry compliance. This is also the area where most errors occur due to omissions or lack of renewals. AI empowers intelligent contracts platforms to easily spot obligations or terms hidden beneath complex legal or contractual language, ensure compliance while also building a long-term trust relationship between the parties involved.

03. Better contract negotiation

Most businesses today cannot escape the complexity of contracts in terms of their nature, industry-specific requirements, type of vendor relationships, among many other factors. AI tools alert users towards terms and outcomes, assist in reviewing the terms or conditions, and ensure that past mistakes are not repeated, let alone committed in the first place. An AI-based contract management platform optimizes the process by applying best industry practices within an organization or a system.

04. Deeper analytics to enable decisions

If a contract management platform simply manages documents online without ever utilizing that information for generating insights, it is not the best business investment. Here’s where AI-powered contracts platforms make all the difference. Each contract has a wealth of information and future references – data that is sitting to be interpreted and utilized. Intelligent contracts platforms help you dig into your existing data, categorize it and uncover insights from each agreement. AI recognizes patterns and identifies hidden relationships within contract data. It helps anticipate potential bottlenecks and provides effective reporting for both parties.

**Smart Search** – Quickly and easily search for keywords and phrases across all your data

How Contract Intelligence Software Helps Business

Modern businesses, awash with intricate contracts and agreements, demand streamlined and smart approaches. Harnessing the power of a contract intelligence solution presents numerous advantages:

01. Productivity: By meticulously scanning contracts, this software promptly identifies key clauses and terms. Automation not only speeds up the process but ensures a level of accuracy that is hard to achieve manually. The result – crucial details are highlighted, potential risks are flagged, and opportunities become more visible, driving informed business strategies.

02. Uncovering hidden value: Storing and managing all contracts in one central system provides a panoramic view of contractual obligations and commitments. This comprehensive insight aids in identifying trends, spotting inconsistencies, and addressing potential areas of concern. With a bird’s-eye view, businesses can manage contracts proactively, anticipating needs and challenges.

contract reminders — **Alerts & Notifications** – Stay ahead of contract renewals and negotiations with Smart Alerts and never miss a renewal again.

03. Enhanced Compliance: The legal and regulatory landscape is in constant flux, presenting potential pitfalls for businesses. Contract intelligence software is routinely updated to reflect these changes, ensuring every contract adheres to the latest regulations. By actively tracking and enforcing compliance, it dramatically reduces legal vulnerabilities and potential fines.

**Unified Dashboard** – Gain enhanced visibility into your data with full traceability to all your contracts, assets, services, customers, and suppliers.

04. Streamlined Workflows: These contract management platforms are designed to dovetail seamlessly with other enterprise systems, breaking down silos that can hinder productivity. As contracts become integrated into broader operational flows, collaboration across departments becomes more natural, accelerating processes and enhancing the efficiency of contract lifecycles.

05. Predictive Insights: Advanced algorithms within the contract management software assess contracts and generate predictive insights. These could range from forecasting potential bottlenecks to suggesting optimization strategies. This forward-looking approach empowers businesses to preempt challenges, ensuring smoother contract management.

06. Cost Efficiency: The monetary advantages of using contract intelligence software extend beyond mere time savings. By actively analyzing contracts, it can unearth potential cost-saving opportunities, be it through renegotiation, timely renewals, or even penalty avoidance. Such financial foresight can lead to substantial savings and optimize budget allocations.

07. Scalability: AI-powered contract management platform evolves with more data and contracts in the system. Such a platform monitors obligations proactively and protects companies from contract-related errors in the long run, learning from each slip-up. When a platform allows scalability, it encourages companies to explore different industry domains fearlessly and expand in other sectors.

By harnessing the capabilities of contract intelligence software, businesses position themselves to navigate contractual complexities with confidence, ensuring robust management, compliance, and strategic advantage.

Revnue’s Contract Intelligence Software Approach

Considering the above benefits of a contract management platform, Revnue has created a platform that unifies several functions to deliver contract intelligence.

As an AI-powered contract management software, Revnue was built to scale in terms of size, industry vertical, or location. A legal firm will find it as useful, scalable, and customizable as a manufacturing company.

Some of its features that make this possible are –

Unified view across assets, suppliers, SaaS, and contracts
Powerful metadata extraction, including information from images, photos, pdf documents
Intelligent capturing of terms and conditions, asset information, supplier information, auto-discovery of SaaS subscriptions, and more
Multi-channel data ingestion, including email, scanning, and support for multi-format document types
Custom fields that allow organizations the freedom to shape contracts as per industry standards
Advanced search, including NLP, delivers the required insights in seconds

Leverage a Contract Intelligence Platform for Actionable Insights

Revnue intends to be a contract intelligence platform to help and steer a business as much as to manage contracts. It provides insights that assist an organization in discovering opportunities within contracts, reducing costs, and maximizing value. The platform delivers this through easy visibility of critical contract terms and collaboration across your teams. A business may leverage its powerful API for enterprise-wide integrations, further ensuring easy access and growth.

In conclusion, while the allure of AI-driven contract intelligence platforms are undeniable, its effective integration and utilization are paramount. Businesses that strategically and thoughtfully incorporate these tools will undoubtedly steer their operations towards unparalleled efficiency and growth.

If you think your organization is in a legacy or traditional business and may not be able to leverage AI-powered contract management software, you should talk to us.