Artificial intelligence is turning contract lifecycle management (CLM) from a storage-and-processing system into a source of legal and commercial intelligence, but only when organisations first fix process discipline, data quality, risk appetite and human accountability, panellists said at the ETLegalWorld AI-Powered Legal Transformation Summit 2026.
The panel “AI-Driven Contract Lifecycle Management & Legal Operations Transformation” was moderated by Dr. Sapna S, Dean, DSU School of Law, and featured Leena Tibrewal (CEO & Co-Founder, my-Contracts), Saloni Agara Dwarakanath (AVP & Head of Legal, Apex India), Anupriya Garg (General Counsel India & Company Secretary, Kennametal), Tarang Kulkarni (Director, Counsel, Company Secretary, Target) and Shujath Bin Ali (Chief Legal Officer, Fourth Partner Energy). The panel agreed the real opportunity isn’t faster drafting, but connecting obligations, regulatory changes, project milestones and business risks across an agreement’s lifecycle.
Tibrewal said failed CLM implementations usually lack a clear roadmap, organisations adopt AI without first defining which processes to improve or where inconsistencies exist. “AI is not going to fix inconsistencies,” she said. Useful automation depends on organisation-specific data, preferred positions, fallback clauses, risk thresholds, making a well-designed legal playbook essential. Leadership and post-deployment adoption matter as much as choosing the technology itself.
Dwarakanath said autonomy versus oversight is especially critical in regulated sectors like financial services, where post-execution monitoring for regulatory shifts matters. She warned against letting AI resolve material contractual disagreements independently, illustrating this with a hypothetical where two companies’ AI agents negotiate and hit an impasse, an autonomous system might still offer a definitive answer instead of escalating it. “The AI would give an answer, and that’s the most dangerous thing,” she said. AI can boost speed, but organisations must retain authority over decisions carrying regulatory, financial or commercial risk.
The Real Opportunity Is Post-Signature
Dwarakanath argued most organisations underuse CLM’s biggest value: post-execution intelligence including tracking KPIs, termination rights and regulatory obligations rather than treating CLM as a mere repository. More advanced systems could compare agreements and generate risk analytics, shifting legal departments from contract administration to continuous contract intelligence.
Ali described this complexity in large renewable-energy projects, where land, financing, EPC and O&M agreements are interconnected but often managed separately, a grid-connectivity delay can ripple across financing and commissioning. Fragmented tracking across spreadsheets and emails obscures the full commercial impact. AI-enabled CLM could unify this into intelligence spanning pricing, obligations, change-of-law and claims, though Ali cautioned the industry remains in early stages, requiring careful implementation and continued human assessment.
Garg advocated a “maker-checker” model: AI accelerates research and drafting, but checking should stay human while confidence in AI outputs is still developing. Key questions include how much data feeds the system, how it’s governed, and how much decision-making authority AI receives. Mature CLM, she suggested, could eventually function as an intelligent legal assistant across the entire agreement lifecycle.
Judgment That AI Can’t Replace
Panelists distinguished legal analysis from business judgment. Tibrewal said AI is an increasingly capable assistant but cannot replace the general counsel, playbooks are human-designed, and humans must retain final command. Dwarakanath added that lawyers balance legal analysis with commercial objectives, relationships and risk appetite, nuance an AI model optimising for the “safest” or highest-return option may miss.
The panel’s concluded that next-generation CLM should connect contracts across functions, monitor obligations, flag regulatory changes and surface risk, requiring clean processes, strong playbooks, usable data and clear human decision rights, not just generative AI bolted onto a repository. As the panel put it, AI may be a powerful horse, but the outcome still depends on the jockey.
The AI-Powered Legal Transformation Summit 2026 by ETLegalWorld was held in Bengaluru. The summit brought together general counsel, in-house legal leaders, and technology innovators, to chart the next phase of legal transformation in an AI-driven world.
