If you could ask your contract any question – what would it be? 

For the last year, we’ve been creating something special at Document Crunch, and I’m very happy to finally tell the world about our newest release – Document Crunch Chat, the ability to ask questions and instantly receive answers through an intuitive and easy-to-use conversational AI interface. 

I’m excited to share more about the amazing capabilities our new feature set unlocks and the ways our customers are already getting crazy value from Contract Chat. Keep reading to see more details on how Chat can take your contract compliance to another level– or check out our recent webinar to see Chat live!  

For years, Document Crunch has been an industry leader in helping construction teams understand and stay compliant with their contracts. By giving users a detailed and comprehensive review of their documents, while also providing organization-specific checklists to evaluate the terms, our users have slashed contract review times and protected themselves from contract risk. 

Chat has put all that contract intelligence into a singular and easy-to-use interface, allowing users to ask any question of their contract and receive a simple answer with links to the contract language specifying that detail. Just check it out:

Going Beyond Chat and Unlocking Contract Insights with Workflows 

Something that’s important to touch on about Chat is that it goes far beyond a simple chatbot. Josh Levy, Document Crunch CEO, puts it best:  

“We’ve essentially given our users a Contract Genius that allows them to ask anything about any contract at any time. By doing this in a collaborative environment where the whole team can learn and share in the knowledge is so much bigger than any workflow support we have offered in the past. It has opened up the possibility to de-risk projects for good.” 

As an example, imagine a project manager on a project site is potentially facing a weather delay and may need to give notice. Sure, they could ask something very specific like “what is the language in the contract around weather delays”, but Chat allows them to go a step further. Check it out: 

A project manager can not only ask ‘what do I do for a weather delay’, they can go as far as asking Chat to draft a delay notice with language specific to the situation for the project itself! 

And the beautiful thing about Chat is how quickly it gives you the answers you need from your contracts, on the fly. Our customers are already sharing where it helped save time: : 

• Project managers getting the quick answers they need as they’re walking into an owner's meeting to talk through pending changes in important contracts 

• A team coming into a Risk Managers office because of a weather issue, then being able to quickly look up the impact, their communication responsibility, and proposed response language instantly. 

• When the owner’s rep unexpectedly came in  asking  the Project Executive questions about their approved manufacturers, he was  able to look them up on the fly and answer instantly  

• A smaller General Contractor needed to quickly make a decision on the terms of a contract  – instead of needing to step out of their owner meeting to check with their lawyer, they were able to ask questions through Chat in real time during negotiations. 

“What I love about the Chat feature is that it’s for everyone. It’s not just for the lawyer or risk manager. It’s for the project executive, the project engineer, and even the project accountant. It is for anyone looking for an answer who doesn’t know how to navigate a contract.” - Maria DiTommaso, Corporate Risk and Contract Manager at Bond Brothers, Inc.

Answering Contract Questions with Chat 

Asking a question such as ‘what are the insurance requirements’ will not only give the user an answer, but is going to include direct references to all the places in the contract that mention insurance. This ensures that the contract reviewer gets both an easily-understandable answer, but can also go to those direct places in the contract to see how and where that language is mentioned for easier redlining and negotiating. 

But Chat isn’t limited to what’s directly in your contract – it can go much further. Chat is armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of construction contracts and can help users gain a deeper understanding of contract language and their projects overall. Unlike other common AI tools, Chat won’t fill in the answers it doesn’t know with guesses. Answers are specifically sourced from YOUR contract.  

When asked questions on confusing legalese like “what is force majeure” or “why is insurance required?”, Chat will reply with helpful industry-specific answers that can enable all users from the back office to the field to understand more about what’s in their contracts. 

Because, at the end of the day, that’s why we created Chat – to make it easy for anyone to understand what’s in their contract whenever they need to know. 

Contract Chat vs ChatGPT  

We understand that our Contract Chat is likely not the first AI chat tool you’ve heard about. And with the recent proliferation of AI-powered chatbots, many users are wondering – How is Contract Chat different than, say, ChatGPT?  

• The biggest and most notable difference users will see between Document Crunch Chat and other chatbots is that we have poured years of construction-specific Industry experience into Chat, which is reflected in features like sample draft notices and an understanding of industry lingo. It’s like we always like to say, we’re not just AI, but ‘artificial intelligence powered by human intelligence’ 

• You may have heard of the term AI Hallucinations. Using common chatbots to answer contract questions opens you up to the risk of getting an answer that isn’t entirely accurate – and with the inability to cite sources within the contract, you’ll have to just read the entire thing again to see if it’s true. Document Crunch Chat understands the importance of getting contract answers right, and isn’t going to create answers that aren’t in your contract In fact we’ll show our work by linking directly where we’re finding the answers right within your contract.  

• It goes without saying that because Contract Chat is integrated with our suite of products, users can feel the benefit of our Comprehensive Review, Contract Checklist, and Project Playbook alongside chat – leaving you with a host of options when it comes to executing those contracts in the field  

Getting the Conversation Going 

With all the hype around what we have done with Chat, it can be daunting to know how to get started with Chat – which is why we’ve created some Conversation Starters to get the conversation with Chat going – just check out some of the ideas you can use to test out Chat and see how well it knows your contracts: 

I’m so happy that we are finally able to tell the world about Document Crunch Contract Chat, and am excited to see users reduce the time needed to review and understand their contracts better, and reduce risks during project execution. If you’re interested in trying chat for yourself, let us know here!