How to Manage Contract Version Control With AI

Contract version control helps your team track changes, choose the right draft, and check what is ready to send. With legal AI, you can now compare drafts and spot conflicting edits. It can check those changes against your company's requirements and suggest new wording. You can open the linked clauses to check its work.

That addresses a problem most legal teams have: the files are all there, but someone still has to work out what changed and which terms apply.

Nicole Altman, then senior counsel at Instacart, described searching the contract database for a counterparty and finding dozens of files. The agreement and amendments were there, but she still couldn't see which terms applied.

What are the terms? What are the actual operative terms?

This can also show up before signing, when several people have edited different copies of a contract.

GC AI is a turnkey legal AI platform that helps you review agreements using the company documents and preferred terms you supply. Ask it to explain a disputed change, check the proposal against your company's position, and draft a response. Your team decides which changes to keep.

As of November 2026, GC AI is used by 2,100 customers. Customers include TIME, SKIMS, and Wayfair.

Here's how to use GC AI to compare drafts, check the files you're about to send, and find out which terms apply after signing.

Save Each Draft and Record Who Edited It

Save the original files each person sends in your company's approved storage system. For example, GC AI's Files feature gives your team a shared document library. Keep drafts, attachments, and preferred terms there, then use them in your review chats. That lets colleagues review the same materials.

For each file, note who sent it, when it arrived, and which draft they edited. Save the message or link that came with it. If someone forwards another person's draft, record both names so you know who made the changes.

If you don't know which draft someone edited, mark the returned file as unverified and ask them. AI can find similar wording, but that alone doesn't prove which file they started from.

Choose one lawyer to maintain the working draft and combine the agreed edits. Tell everyone whether to edit that file, leave comments, or return a separate copy. Retain older drafts under your records policy.

Compare Contract Versions With AI

Once you know where each draft came from, ask GC AI to compare it with the version that person received. Have it list the changed terms, show the relevant clauses, and flag questions the lawyer needs to decide.

If people started from different versions, review each comparison before bringing the agreed changes into the working draft. Check any edits made since those versions went out so you don't accidentally lose them.

Let's use a fictional software procurement negotiation. Counsel sends a master services agreement to the vendor and the buyer's security reviewer. Both return edits to its incident-notification clause:

Draft	Proposed Incident-Notification Language
Counsel's original draft	Without undue delay after awareness
Vendor's revised draft	Within 72 hours after confirmation
Security team's revised draft	Within 24 hours after awareness

Ask GC AI to compare both the notice deadline and the event that requires notice.

The security team wants notice after the vendor becomes aware of an incident. The vendor wants to wait until it confirms the incident. Simply combining the edits could produce “24 hours after confirmation,” a position neither side proposed.

GC AI's Exact Quote lets you click a citation to open the source document with the quoted words highlighted. Here, use it to check whether the clause says “awareness” or “confirmation.”

Give GC AI the buyer's written requirements and ask it to suggest a response. In this example, the lawyer obtains internal approval to propose notice within 48 hours after the vendor becomes aware of an incident, with a named recipient.

Schedule 1, the attachment with the notice details, still says “72 hours after confirmation.” Ask GC AI to compare it with the proposed clause, checking the deadline, whether notice follows awareness or confirmation, and who receives it. The lawyer corrects the schedule before sending the proposal to the vendor.

GC AI for Word is an add-in that lets you draft, review, and redline inside Microsoft Word. GC AI's Playbooks feature checks the contract against your team's saved review rules, including preferred terms and fallback positions. Review the proposed tracked changes in Word, then accept, reject, or revise each edit.

Hayley McAllister, Senior Counsel and Head of Commercial Legal at Jasper, uses the Word plugin for redlining and contract review:

Once the Word plugin rolled out, I pretty much exclusively started using it for all of my redlining and contract review.

See how to review and redline a contract directly in Microsoft Word with GC AI:

Create the outgoing redline against the vendor's last draft so the vendor can see what you changed. Label any comparison with your own original draft as internal.

Record Which Contract Files Are Approved to Send

When you're ready to send the counterproposal, use your contract approval workflow to record the approved terms, exact files, any conditions, and who will send them. Save the written approval with that record.

Here, approval of the 48-hour notice term depends on correcting Schedule 1 first. Name the outgoing files clearly, such as MSA_v3_Redline_vs_Vendor_v2.docx, so the recipient knows which drafts are compared.

Ask GC AI to check the files against that approval and draft a note for the deal owner:

Example Prompt: Counterproposal Handoff

Review the clean counterproposal, the redline against the vendor's last draft, Schedule 1, and the written internal approval. Check that the notice terms match across the files and cite the relevant clauses.

List missing approvals, unresolved questions, and edits the approval does not cover.

Draft a note naming the exact files to send, the terms we are proposing, and the vendor response still needed. Distinguish approval to send from approval to sign. Do not assume a file is approved because of its name.

Check the note against the files and approval before giving it to the deal owner. If a file changes afterward, record the change and obtain any further review your policy requires.

Check the Clean Copy, Redline, and Attachments

With approval recorded, check that the clean copy, redline, and attachments all reflect the approved proposal. Verify the files the recipient will receive:

1. Create the clean copy and redline from the reviewed counterproposal. Compare the redline against the vendor's last draft, preserving both source files.
2. On a separate copy of the redline, accept all tracked changes and compare the resulting text with the clean copy. Investigate any differences. Keep the outgoing redline intact.
3. Check the schedules, exhibits, order forms, and other attachments against the approved terms. Include the corrected Schedule 1 in this example, and identify any new attachments.
4. Review comments, document properties, headers, footers, and rendered pages for internal material the recipient should not receive. Remove it from the outgoing copies, preserve deliberate explanations for the other side, and recheck the files.

Word's No Markup view only hides tracked changes. To create a clean copy, review and accept or reject those changes.

Check That the Signing Copy Matches the Approved Contract

Before sending the contract for signature, compare it and its attachments with the version approved for signing. Check completed fields and any changes introduced during conversion. If the terms changed, obtain further review before sending.

After signing, save the signed contract, attachments, and signing records in your contract repository. Keep the earlier versions, and ask counsel to resolve any difference between the approved and signed terms.

Find Current Terms Across Agreements and Amendments

After signing, use the executed agreement and any later amendments to determine which terms apply. An amendment might change the notice deadline and leave everything else the same. As Altman's example shows, you may need several documents to find the answer.

GC AI's Contract Intelligence links amendments, statements of work, and renewals to their agreements. Its Current Terms view brings together the terms that apply across those documents, with links to the source clauses. You can check the answer without searching each file separately.

See how GC AI's Contract Intelligence helps you find answers across your contracts:

To find the current contract terms after amendments, ask GC AI which notice deadline applies to the service and date you're checking. Check its cited clauses against each signed amendment's scope and effective date, and confirm which provision takes priority if they conflict. Obtain missing documents and resolve conflicts before relying on the answer.

Tell the business what notice it must give, link to the clauses, and name the person who will answer any open questions.

Compare GC AI's Review With Your Own

Use a negotiation your team knows well to see GC AI in action. Bring files you're allowed to share, including the returned drafts, final schedule, and approval record. You can also remove confidential details or create fictional files with the same issues. Ask GC AI to explain the changes and draft a note telling the deal owner what to send.

Compare GC AI's explanation of the changes, proposed edits, and note for the deal owner with your team's own review. Does it identify conflicting terms and stay within the approval evidence you supplied? Use the results to decide whether it would help your team.