DocuSign expands agreement cloud with new AI solution for incoming contract analysis and negotiation

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its drive to bring the power of artificial intelligence to the broader agreement process, DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU) today released DocuSign Analyzer, the AI-powered contract analytics solution designed for incoming agreements.

As an extension of DocuSign Insight—the enterprise AI solution that lets companies find, search and understand the agreements they already have—Analyzer streamlines the process of reviewing and negotiating agreements when companies first receive them. It uses AI to provide legal, sales, procurement and other stakeholders with clear and actionable insight into the risks and opportunities in the documents they are being asked to review and sign—before it's too late to negotiate better terms.

These issues were quantified in recent studies. In one*, almost half the companies surveyed faced significant risks as they couldn't easily detect problematic language in contracts. In another survey**, a third of companies said contracts take an average of over 30 hours to negotiate. And 65% experienced delays in closing deals as a result of contract management challenges.

"While we've long made it easier for customers to get agreements signed electronically, we knew we could do more to help them understand and manage any risks prior to doing so," explained Jim Wagner, VP of Agreement Cloud Strategy at DocuSign. "With Insight, we help customers understand the agreements they already have. With Analyzer, we can now help accelerate the review and negotiation of new, incoming agreements."

Analyzer works by breaking down an incoming agreement into individual clauses, which it can recognize by type using a combination of AI technologies. It then conducts a detailed risk-assessment based on the organization's own legal and business standards, delivering the results in easy-to-understand scorecards available within Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, and DocuSign's contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution. Analyzer also simplifies the editing process with single-click access to recommended replacement language from an intelligent library of pre-approved clauses.

In beta testing, companies reported saving thousands of dollars per agreement using DocuSign Analyzer—which, when considered over the tens of thousands of contracts often executed annually, offers significant top and bottom line impact. There are additional benefits, too:

  • Speed & ROI: The risk analysis and information served up by Analyzer enables contract approval to be secured more efficiently, and for business to be done faster.
  • Reduced risk & enhanced compliance: Companies can be confident their agreements are optimized for their own business and legal standards.
  • Improved customer & partner experience: This smoother agreement process overall makes organizations easier to do business with.

Technology and legal services company UnitedLex has seen the value Analyzer brings to legal teams firsthand. According to EVP of Corporate & Commercial Services Dan Hendy, DocuSign Analyzer is helping with smarter execution and more cost-effective outcomes in its own contracting process.

"As a major collaborator on the industry's largest deployment of AI within pre-signature commercial contracting, we're leveraging Analyzer across a team of 250+ global transactional attorneys," explains Hendy. "We're seeing the impact that integrated AI tools can deliver: reducing human review time and ensuring consistency of response, all while mitigating risk. This optimizes the contract negotiation process and means legal departments can deliver an even better service to their business."

DocuSign Analyzer is available immediately in the US, UK, Canada and Germany as an extension to DocuSign Insight—and bundled pricing with DocuSign CLM will be available later this year. For more information, please visit www.docusign.com.

*The State of Systems of Agreement—a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of DocuSign, Jan 2020

**State of Contract Management Report, 2019 

Media Relations
Adrian Wainwright
Head of Communications
media@docusign.com 

Investor Relations
Annie Leschin
VP Investor Relations
investors@docusign.com 

About DocuSign

DocuSign helps organizations connect and automate how they prepare, sign, act on, and manage agreements. As part of the DocuSign Agreement Cloud, DocuSign offers eSignature: the world's #1 way to sign electronically on practically any device, from almost anywhere, at any time. Today, nearly 750,000 customers and hundreds of millions of users in over 180 countries use DocuSign to accelerate the process of doing business and to simplify life.

For more information, visit www.docusign.com, call +1-877-720-2040, or follow @DocuSign on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

SOURCE DocuSign, Inc.