AI Assisted Signing

What is AI Assisted Signing?

AI assisted signing represents a paradigm shift in how legal agreements are executed in the digital age. For decades, electronic signatures have focused exclusively on the act of signing—the cryptographic verification of an identity. However, this focus has often ignored the "understanding gap": the moment between receiving a document and feeling confident enough to sign it.

In a traditional flow, a signer who encounters complex legal jargon (legalese) or a language barrier has two choices: sign blindly (creating legal risk) or leave the workflow to seek help. In the modern workplace, seeking help often means copying sensitive contract data into public AI tools like ChatGPT.

AI assisted signing solves this by embedding a private AI assistant in signing directly within the document's secure environment.

This technology utilizes Large Language Models (LLMs) that are "context-aware" regarding the specific document being viewed. It doesn't just act as a chatbot; it acts as a bridge between the complex, often defensive language of contracts and the human need for clarity. By staying inside a tenant-isolated signing environment, the process ensures that the interaction remains confidential, preventing data from leaking into the public domain.

Why Does AI Assisted Signing Matter Now?

The rise of this technology is driven by a collision of three global trends:

1. The Rise of Shadow AI: According to KPMG (2025), 66% of the global workforce now uses AI tools to speed up their work. When a signer doesn't understand a clause, their first instinct is often to use an external AI. AI assisted signing provides a safe, sanctioned alternative that keeps data inside a document container.
2. Increased Global Trade: As businesses operate across borders, documents are frequently sent to parties whose native language differs from the contract's language. AI assistance allows for multilingual contract signing, where the assistant can explain English law concepts in Spanish, Swedish, or German, for example.
3. The Efficiency Mandate: McKinsey (2025) notes that AI's greatest workplace value lies in its ability to synthesize unstructured data. AI assisted signing automates the "explanation phase" of a contract, reducing the back-and-forth between legal teams and counterparties, which significantly accelerates the time-to-signature.

Core Features of AI Assisted Signing

To provide a truly interactive experience, AI assisted signing relies on several key technical capabilities:

• Semantic Highlighting: The AI doesn't just summarize; it identifies and highlights the specific clauses it is discussing, ensuring the signer can verify the assistant's explanation against the original text.
• Plain Language Translation: It has the ability to "translate" legal complexity into human-readable terms, explaining concepts like indemnification or force majeure in a way a non-lawyer can grasp.
• Interactive Q&A: Signers can ask open-ended questions like “What are my obligations if I cancel early?” and receive an answer based solely on the provided document.
• Accessibility Integration: Beyond text, it often includes voice-to-text features, allowing signers to listen to summaries or dictate questions, making legal documents more accessible to those with visual impairments or reading difficulties.

Practical Scenario: Cross-Border Real Estate

Consider a property management firm in Sweden leasing commercial space to an international tech company.

• The Problem: The lease is 45 pages of Swedish legal text. The tenant's representative is in London and is hesitant to sign without a full legal review, which could take weeks.
• The AI Intervention: The representative opens the secure signing link. Using the AI assistant, they ask: “Summarize the maintenance responsibilities for the tenant.” The AI immediately points to the relevant sections and provides a clear summary in English.
• The Result: The tenant understands their risks and obligations in minutes rather than weeks. The deal closes faster, and the property manager avoids the risk of the tenant copying the lease into an unsecured public AI.

FAQ

Is AI assisted signing the same as AI contract review?
Not exactly. While AI contract review is typically a pre-signature tool for legal teams to find risks, AI assisted signing is a signer-facing tool designed to facilitate understanding and completion at the moment of execution.

How is data privacy handled during the AI interaction?
In a professional implementation, the interaction occurs within a sandboxed AI environment. This means the conversation between the signer and the AI is never used to train the global model and is protected by the same encryption as the document itself.

Does this make the contract “smarter”?
It makes the process smarter. The contract remains a legally binding document, but the friction of the “understanding phase” is removed, leading to fewer disputes and higher trust between parties.