AI in agreement management: the future of corporate intelligence

Agreements are everywhere. Contracts with suppliers, service orders, credit applications, internal approvals, powers of attorney, addenda, certificates. Every day, organizations process hundreds, sometimes thousands of them. However, while most companies invest in management systems for practically everything (sales, inventory, finance), agreements often remain fragmented, stored in drawers, network folders, or personal computers.

The result? Valuable information remains hidden in documents, inaccessible for analysis and decision-making. Critical data is not structured. Contractually binding obligations are forgotten. Important clauses are never revisited. Renegotiation opportunities are lost.

This is not a technology problem, but a business intelligence problem.

Where the problems begin

Consider the typical lifecycle of a corporate agreement:

1. Creation: multiple versions in circulation, with no tracking of who changed what;

2. Negotiation: back and forth between departments (legal, purchasing, business, finance);

3. Approval: disconnected approval workflows, often done by email;

4. Signature: difficulty in identifying who has the authority to sign;

5. Storage: contract stored on the computer of a person who eventually leaves the company;

6. Execution: obligations are partially fulfilled or completely forgotten;

7. Renewal: no one remembers the expiration date until it's too late.

At each of these stages, valuable data is lost. And here's the paradox: companies invest billions in business intelligence and data analytics, but their corporate agreements, which contain critical business decisions, legal risks, and financial opportunities, remain unstructured documents.

Real challenges: beyond the surface

1. Data locked in documents

When a contract is stored in a file, its data is hidden.

Yes, you can read the document, but how do you know when it expires? What is the total value? Who are the parties involved? What is the termination clause? Without structuring, this information cannot be queried in seconds, compared with others, or analyzed in bulk.

Companies with hundreds or thousands of contracts face a monumental challenge: discovering patterns, risks, or opportunities requires intensive manual work.

2. Fragmented and inefficient processes

Different areas of an organization handle agreements in completely different ways. The purchasing department uses one method, legal another, sales yet another. There is no standardization, no centralized visibility, and no way to ensure that all agreements are managed with the same rigor.

Consequence: approval errors, delays in critical processes, lack of compliance, and exposure to legal risks.

3. Risk of incorrect signature

Who can sign a real estate acquisition agreement? Who can sign an IT service order?

The answer lies in corporate powers of attorney that define "powers," but these are often not available for consultation when needed. Secretaries and managers try to memorize who has authorization, documents end up being signed by unauthorized individuals, contracts become legally invalid, or expose the company to risks.

4. Constant rework

Contracts renewed annually accumulate addenda, and identifying what is in effect requires reading the original document and all addenda, looking for clauses that have been modified or revoked. Executives need this information to make decisions, but they generally do not have it clearly and quickly.

5. Compliance and audit at risk

Legislation changes, labor laws are amended, tax reforms occur. When this happens, all powers of attorney, employment contracts, and commercial agreements need to be revisited and adjusted. Without a centralized and intelligent repository, companies miss compliance deadlines, incur fines, and expose themselves to legal risks.

6. Loss of financial opportunities

Commercial contracts with adjustment, renewal, or discount clauses are often not monitored. Renegotiation opportunities, potential savings, or additional revenue go unnoticed. It's like leaving money on the table.

The solution: intelligent agreement and contract management

In an increasingly dynamic and regulated corporate environment, contract and agreement management has ceased to be an operational activity and has become a competitive differentiator. The way companies manage, analyze, and extract value from their agreements directly impacts costs, risks, compliance, and execution speed.

Artificial intelligence applied to agreement management does not replace people; it amplifies their capabilities. Machines can process documents in bulk, structure data in seconds, and identify patterns that would take humans weeks to detect.

There are two critical components:

1. AI specialized in documents

Not all AI is the same. Generic AI (like public chatbots) was trained on various internet texts. AI specialized in agreements was trained on trillions of real transactions, knowing specific contexts of contracts, powers of attorney, legal terms, and corporate obligations.

This specialization is crucial. The same date can have different meanings depending on the context: in a contract, it may indicate the effective date; in an identity document, the date of birth; in an invoice, the due date. Specialized AI understands these contexts, like SQUADRA group's AI Doc Lens.

2. Integration with agreement management platforms

Isolated AI is interesting, but AI integrated into real workflows is transformative. When connected to platforms that manage the agreement lifecycle, AI extracts data from documents and feeds it directly into Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) processes and platforms.

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is software for managing contracts throughout their entire lifecycle, from creation and negotiation to execution, monitoring, and renewal. A tool that organizes processes, establishes approval workflows, centralizes documents, and provides visibility into the status of each contract. It is an operational approach that connects legal, commercial, financial, and operational areas.

According to a study by Deloitte and Docusign, "organizations with advanced CLM are able to exceed their financial goals by 55% more than other organizations."

In other words: efficient contract management not only organizes the document flow but also differentiates companies in the market by offering greater legal certainty, transparency, and agility in negotiations.

Docusign, a SQUADRA partner and global leader in agreement management, has evolved the CLM concept to IAM (Intelligent Agreement Management). With an IAM platform, companies can:

• Create agreements collaboratively and automatically, integrating everything with the systems they already use (CRM, HRM, ERP);

• Formalize agreements quickly with security and a better experience for clients, partners, and employees;

• Manage agreements by revealing previously hidden information, extracting value, and minimizing risks.

How AI enhances intelligent agreement management

Text mining emerges as a key technology that allows for the extraction and structuring of information from large volumes of documents, automatically organizing data through AI.

In Brazil, Gotodata, a company in the SQUADRA Group, is a reference in AI solutions that include text mining, with AI Doc Lens being one of its solutions.

AI Doc Lens is capable of recognizing documents, classifying them, extracting and interpreting what is written, structuring the extracted data, and enriching it. Without human intervention, the solution automates repetitive tasks and mitigates errors in document creation, reading, analysis, and validation.

In practice, AI Doc Lens enhances IAM by offering text mining tools that help structure information, identify critical clauses, monitor contractual events, and feed intelligent reports scalably and securely. Thus, companies will have not only archived contracts but actionable recognition to generate value throughout the agreement chain.

This integration between the flexibility of IAM and the intelligence of AI is what allows for the creation of transformative applications, from automatic subscriber management to intelligent contract consolidation and onboarding without typing.

In every area of the company, an operational transformation:

Sales:

• Intelligent contract creation reduces negotiation time;

• Automatic indication of signatories speeds up closing;

• Contract governance identifies upsell and renewal opportunities.

Purchasing:

• Automatic onboarding of legal entities/individuals standardizes hiring processes;

• Management of signatures and powers of attorney reduces risks of invalid signatures;

• Data extraction provides visibility to all suppliers and contracts.

HR:

• Intelligent onboarding of individuals automates hiring with zero typing;

• Compliance with labor legislation is ensured by automatic obligation consolidation;

• Tracking of benefits and obligations is centralized.

Legal:

• Automatic contract analysis reduces review time;

• Automatic detection identifies risks and critical clauses;

• Management of signatures and powers of attorney ensures legal compliance in signatures;

• Consolidation of addenda provides visibility of current obligations.

Finance:

• Automatic extraction of contract data feeds cash flow forecasting;

• Contract governance tracks payment flows and financial obligations.

Compliance:

• Automatic monitoring ensures compliance with regulations;

• Consolidation of contracts and addenda ensures that obligations are met;

• Data extraction provides complete audit of all corporate agreements.

The path to implementation

Start small, scale gradually

Unlike traditional corporate systems (ERPs, CRMs) that require massive and disruptive implementation, Docusign and SQUADRA's intelligent agreement management solutions are modular.

You can start with one department and then expand to others. Each expansion delivers immediate value, justifying new investments.

Integrate with existing systems

Docusign solutions and AI DocLens have thousands of native integrations with systems you already use: SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce. There is no need to replace existing infrastructure; you complement and enhance it.

Consider specialized partners

Implementing intelligent agreement management with specialized digital transformation partners like SQUADRA, with expertise in artificial intelligence and specialization in Docusign solutions, can accelerate the journey, avoid pitfalls, and ensure a quick return.

Corporate agreements are not just legal documents. They are windows into the business. They contain information about partners, risks, opportunities, obligations, and critical decisions. Leaving them disorganized and unstructured is leaving value on the table.

Artificial intelligence specialized in agreement management transforms these documents into strategic assets. It does not replace human judgment; it merely enhances human capacity to make better, faster decisions based on real data.

Companies that implement AI in agreement management today are, as seen in the Deloitte report, building a competitive advantage on various business fronts, ensuring greater efficiency, security, and business intelligence.

Docusign & SQUADRA: a partnership that transforms agreements into business intelligence

SQUADRA has combined its end-to-end digital transformation expertise with Docusign, the global leader in intelligent agreement management, to change how companies deal with agreements and contracts, making these documents no longer just formalities but intelligent sources of information, through the strategic application of AI.

Gotodata, SQUADRA's AI Business Unity, has developed AI Doc Lens, an artificial intelligence solution that automates the processing, interpretation, and enrichment of documents with full regulatory compliance.

Without human intervention, these solutions automate repetitive tasks and mitigate errors in document creation, reading, analysis, and validation. More efficiency, fewer risks, greater compliance, and strategic insights are part of the increasingly intelligent, integrated, and data-driven future of agreement management.

Want to understand how SQUADRA and Docusign can help your company transform agreement management with artificial intelligence? Contact us.