AI is most useful when it reduces manual scanning and standardizes what gets surfaced for review — especially renewals, term lengths, and notice periods.
What AI is great at
Modern AI can reliably extract:
- Renewal dates and term lengths
- Notice periods and auto-renew language
- Key commercial terms like pricing and payment terms
- Vendor and party names
- Contract values and billing frequencies
This means less time hunting through PDFs and more time making decisions.
What still needs human judgment
AI isn't perfect. These areas still need human review:
- Non-standard or heavily negotiated clauses
- Ambiguous termination language
- Complex pricing schedules and addendums
- Multi-document agreements with amendments
- Industry-specific regulatory terms
Always review AI-extracted data before acting on it.
A safe rollout plan
If you're implementing AI contract extraction, here's a practical approach:
1. Start small - Begin with high-volume, standard vendor agreements
2. Require review - Don't auto-save extracted terms without human verification
3. Track accuracy - Monitor how often you need to correct AI extractions
4. Standardize ownership - Make sure someone owns each contract's data quality
The bottom line
AI saves time on the tedious parts of contract management — finding dates, extracting terms, and surfacing what matters. But the decisions still need humans.
The best approach is AI-assisted, not AI-automated. Let the technology handle the scanning while your team focuses on strategy and negotiation.