AI Contract Review: Software, Workflow, and Evaluation

AI contract review uses artificial intelligence to analyze agreements, compare terms with a company’s preferred positions, and suggest changes for a lawyer to review. Useful software should help counsel find the provisions that matter, check the source language, and produce a redline and recommendation the business can act on.

For in-house teams that need to carry that work through legal research and business advice, we recommend GC AI, the legal intelligence software platform built for in-house counsel used by 2,100+ legal teams, including teams at TIME, Nestlé, Riot Games, Bass Pro Shops, and SKIMS. The right choice for a solo GC or a Fortune 500 legal department depends on the agreements you handle, the document editor you use, and the work required before someone can approve the deal.

What AI Contract Review Should Produce

A contract summary explains what an agreement says. A review goes further: it compares the agreement with the company’s instructions, identifies departures, proposes changes, and leaves unresolved decisions with the right person.

Ask for three connected deliverables:

• A findings record: The issue, source passage, company position, proposed response, and any missing information.
• An editable redline: Changes and comments counsel can inspect, revise, and exchange with the counterparty.
• A business recommendation: What can proceed, what needs negotiation, and who must approve an exception.

Those deliverables should agree. A summary that says the renewal provision is acceptable while the redline changes it leaves the lawyer with another reconciliation task.

Our co-founder and CEO, Cecilia Ziniti, served as general counsel at Anki, BloomTech, and Replit and as counsel at Amazon and Cruise. At Replit in 2022, she began using early large language models for legal work. She and Bardia Pourvakil, a lead engineer she worked with at Replit, co-founded GC AI in 2023 to build the platform she wanted as a GC.

That experience shapes the product’s focus. In an interview with Corporate Counsel Business Journal, Cecilia explains that in-house counsel must apply the law to the company’s priorities, history, and risk tolerance. A contract review should therefore reflect your company’s negotiating position and help you advise the people making the business decision.

AI Contract Review Software to Compare

For an in-house team, from a solo GC to an enterprise law department, compare how each tool handles the work you need to finish.

Data note: This comparison describes capabilities in product documentation and public pages checked in October 2026. It is not a scored product test. Availability varies by plan, integration, and rollout; use your own agreement to compare the resulting work.

GC AI: From Contract Findings to Executive Advice

GC AI’s Playbooks and Word integration help counsel apply company standards while negotiating in the agreement. A solo GC can reuse approved positions; a larger department can give reviewers a shared starting point for preferred terms, fallbacks, and escalations.

GC AI’s Exact Quote helps counsel check a finding against the agreement before changing it. Research supports questions the playbook cannot settle, such as a customer’s request for regulatory language.

Alexis Palmer, Senior Managing Counsel at Snyk, describes using GC AI when a customer requests contract language based on regulatory requirements:

I’ll use GC AI to research what those requirements actually are and draft something that works for both sides.

Ivo

Counsel needs to distinguish a recurring company position from a concession accepted for one deal. When comparing Ivo and GC AI, test how each handles approved positions and exceptions from prior negotiations.

Spellbook

For teams weighing Spellbook against GC AI, a useful test follows the agreement through the counterparty’s next draft. Inspect which suggested edits counsel retains and whether the comments clearly explain the negotiating position.

LegalOn

When weighing LegalOn against GC AI, consider the work needed to adapt the starting playbooks to your company’s role, preferred terms, and permitted fallbacks. Decide who will maintain those standards as your negotiating positions change.

Harvey

Harvey’s Playbook Builder draws on templates, marked-up agreements, and existing instructions. Custom Agents can run in Word, while Custom Workflows are not yet supported in the add-in. When evaluating Harvey alongside GC AI, confirm the specific workflow available in your proposed package.

Ironclad

Ironclad’s Contract Review Agent, formerly Jurist, supports analysis and redlining, including in Word. Playbook setup can require services, and some capabilities remain in early access. The choice between Ironclad and GC AI depends partly on how review connects with your contracting process.

Claude

Claude’s legal plugins use a setup process to capture team playbooks and practice context. Someone must maintain those instructions and connected sources. Teams comparing Claude with GC AI should include that ongoing work alongside the quality of the reviewed agreement.

ChatGPT Business

Give ChatGPT your negotiating role, approved positions, and the complete agreement set. In a ChatGPT and GC AI evaluation, inspect how much work counsel needs to verify the findings, revise the proposed language, and prepare the outgoing document.

Astra for Law

Astra for Law’s initial direct rollout is limited to selected US law firms. Our GC AI ChatGPT Plugin offers a separate way to work in ChatGPT: connect your GC AI workspace to review agreements using your team’s documents and playbooks, where available. Plugin access does not itself grant access to Astra for Law.

How to Use AI to Review a Contract

The following example shows a hypothetical vendor renewal review. The documents, clause numbers, and company positions illustrate the workflow. Use your company’s actual terms and approval rules. For the full process from intake to signature, see our contract review guide.

Assume your company is renewing a software subscription. The signed master services agreement requires 90 days’ notice of nonrenewal. The proposed renewal order form refers to online terms that are missing from the review materials. Your company’s supplied playbook prefers 30 days’ notice and permits 60 days only with approval from the general counsel and the business owner.

Establish the Source Set

Collect the signed agreement, amendments, current order form, proposed renewal, and incorporated terms. Identify signed, proposed, superseded, and missing documents. Check that scans, tables, and appendices are readable.

For agreements in Contract Intelligence, Current Terms brings together the in-force terms across the contract family. Open the cited notice provision and check the amendment chain. Keep the proposed renewal separate from the signed terms.

In this example, procurement must obtain the missing online terms before counsel can confirm their effect on renewal and document precedence. Continue reviewing the supplied text while keeping that conclusion open.

Apply Positions, Fallbacks, and Approval Conditions

In GC AI, counsel can run a Playbook against the open Word document, specify whose paper it is, and add deal context. Each check receives a Pass, Fallback, or Flag recommendation, with an explanation and any suggested redline. Counsel checks the analysis, edits the recommendation, and obtains any approval the playbook requires.

Check the Source and the Proposed Redline

Use GC AI’s Exact Quote to open the citation to Section 8.2 and inspect the highlighted notice language. Check whether an amendment or cross-reference changes the 90-day requirement before proposing an edit.

For this renewal, the proposed change is from 90 days to 30 days. Counsel confirms whether to make that change through an order form, an amendment, or another appropriate document. Editing a copy of the MSA does not itself amend the signed agreement.

Inspect the outgoing tracked changes, numbering, defined terms, and comments. Keep internal approval notes separate from comments for the counterparty.

Research a Legal Question When It Changes the Advice

Suppose the renewal also raises a Delaware forum-selection question. GC AI Research can help counsel find relevant authority and assess how it applies to the supplied clause. The US Case Law workflow opens full opinions in Opinion Reader.

Counsel checks jurisdiction, reasoning, procedural context, and subsequent treatment before deciding whether to revise the clause. Treatment indicators are not available for every case, so critical authorities need an independent check. The resulting advice should explain how the research changes the proposed negotiation position.

Deliver the Redline and the Business Recommendation

Give the CEO or business partner the decision, its commercial consequence, and the next action. For the hypothetical renewal:

I recommend negotiating the notice period down to 30 days. Procurement needs to obtain the incorporated online terms before we approve the renewal. A 60-day fallback requires the general counsel and business owner’s approval.

Before sending, check that the redline requests 30 days and that the internal recommendation identifies the missing terms and required fallback approvals.

Retain the Approved Work for the Next Review

GC AI Projects can group related files, chats, and instructions so later work uses the matter’s context. Add relevant files explicitly; files referenced in a Word chat do not automatically join the Project.

Keep counsel’s reasoning and final disposition with the sources, including who approved an exception and whether it applies only to this deal. The playbook owner decides whether a recurring issue merits a policy change.

AI Construction Contract Review Requires the Connected Documents

A construction review may need the prime agreement, subcontract, incorporated conditions, scope documents, schedules, and change orders. Specify whether you represent the owner, general contractor, or subcontractor.

As AIA Contract Documents explains, flow-down provisions can carry obligations from a prime agreement into a subcontract. Ask the AI to identify the upstream source and any conflict with your scope. If that source is missing, keep the finding open.

Review payment conditions, notices, indemnification, and changes to scope, price, or time. Counsel checks the legal position; the project team confirms the schedule and cost assumptions.

Evaluate the Finished Work, Including the Repairs

Choose agreements your team understands and record the expected issues before running the evaluation. Include material that reflects your workload: an acceptable clause, a negotiated exception, a missing attachment, or a scan that needs attention.

Give each finalist the same source set, approved positions, and requested deliverables. Keep a record of configuration and assistance provided by the vendor so you can distinguish product output from work performed during the demonstration.

Separate a missed approval condition from a formatting problem. Both create work, but they have different consequences. Use the results to decide which agreement types and tasks are ready for routine use, and where counsel needs a more involved review.

Check Pricing, Deployment, and Data Handling

Request a written quote covering seats, implementation, playbook setup, integrations, research access, and usage or document-capacity charges. For consumption-based pricing, model an ordinary month and a peak month. Confirm minimum seats, contract and renewal terms, and included research databases and Contract Intelligence capacity in the proposed GC AI package.

Assign owners for the Word add-in, document connections, access, and playbook maintenance. GC AI’s Agent Connectors use connected accounts and configurable action permissions; retrieving a document and sending a message require different decisions about access.

GC AI Academy helps reviewers learn a repeatable workflow. Building Playbooks in GC AI covers review standards, while AI in Microsoft Word for In-House Legal focuses on working in the document. Have reviewers practice on a known agreement before expanding the rollout.

GC AI’s security materials describe ring-fenced data, separated from other customers’ information and encrypted in storage and transit. GC AI works with leading AI providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. None of our providers train on your data.

Zero-data-retention agreements with LLM providers apply wherever feasible; the subprocessor list records provider-specific conditions. Review these separately from GC AI’s own storage, retention, and access controls.

Bring an Agreement and the Decision It Needs

For a GC AI demonstration, bring an agreement your team has permission to use, the relevant company positions, and the business question behind the review. Ask to follow the work from source passages through proposed edits to a recommendation, including any missing information or approval that keeps the matter open.

Watch GC AI in Action