The global contract lifecycle management (CLM) software market is currently at USD 2.96 billion and it is forecasted to reach around USD 8.07 billion by 2034, accelerating at a CAGR of 11.78% from 2025 to 2034 with the largest share of CLM software usage in the USA.

The traditional offline mode of contract creation, redlining, negotiating, monitoring and analysis is undergoing a global change with AI embedded CLM platforms.

CLM platforms are gradually gaining adoption in large Indian organizations. Overseas parent companies, especially US based, which use a CLM platform have built or are building their captive CLM teams in India.

CLM platforms with customized contract templates, business specific system configurations and advanced AI features are centralizing and standardizing the precontracting and post-contracting processes at the org-level. CLM platforms remove and reduce errors and biases in drafting contracts, negotiating contracts and contract management, especially while obligation-tracking and obligation-fulfilment.

For existing contracts which were created in an organization pre-CLM platform, the customized CLM platform once live can extract key terms and obligations and act as a validation, monitoring, and risk mitigation tool.

With e-signing and e-stamping features on a CLM platform there is a comprehensive precontracting solution with readily available audit trails.

The industry-leading CLM platforms are evolving rapidly on account of an increase in their own AI capabilities and the availability of enormous client data, continuous client inputs, and other third-party data sources. Soon smaller organizations will be able to buy miniCLM platforms which have pre-configured standard contract drafts selected from the CLM platform’s ‘menu of standard contracts’. Startups or smaller organizations with limited budgets will buy these mini-CLM platforms to set up lean legal and compliance departments instead of waiting to reach the right org-size or investment series.

Some very large organizations outside India have made it mandatory for their major suppliers to adopt a common CLM platform. This is a forced transition from good-to-have to must-have mainly for addressing obligations tracking and disputes management and resolution.

CLM adoption will unlock bandwidth at in-house legal and compliance teams. These teams will then focus more on business futureproofing, risk management, statutory compliance, disputes and execute higher quality legal work in-house. Outsourcing of contract drafting and general corporate advisory work to external lawyers and law firmswill be reduced.

On the CLM platform, an organization’s auditors (especially internal auditors) can receive a holistic view and data analytics on the pre-contracting and post-contracting facets. CLM platforms with detailed data dashboards and analysis could become excellent tools for an
organization’s auditors to enhance their audits and audit reports. Internal audit observations related to contracting (including obligations fulfilment) will be reduced since the CLM platform will help resolve and highlight issues well in advance.

ESG norms could formally consider CLM platforms under ‘good governance’ considering that CLM platforms increase ethics and compliance values and finely integrate businessprocurement-legal-compliance on a common platform via technology, internal policies, frameworks, manuals and charters.

Organizations which have ready data on rights and obligations tracking and compliance in their CLM platform will have a significant advantage in disputes resolution and disputes management. Data required for pleadings will be handy and high-quality – even emails
can be uploaded to the CLM platform. Briefing notes for lawyers can be generated quickly with AI instructions on the set of facts, contracts and other documents in question. The number of contractual disputes will be reduced at the org-level since tracking obligations
and obligations compliance will be an integral part of the CLM platform. Even summaries of what is going right and what is going wrong in a contract and its obligations-compliance can be created quickly via the CLM platform.

As CLM software usage expands, there will be rapid contract standardization not just within an organization but even among organizations. The CLM platforms will have common clause language and libraries, common AI prompts and common features and the expectation will be that when two organizations are entering into a contract, they simply share their standard clauses and finalize the contract via their respective CLM tools with AI support and minimal verbal and in-person meetings. Contracting will move from complexity and subjectivity to clarity and objectivity.

Disclaimer: All views expressed above are personal.

This article is authored by Aman Yadav, who is currently a General Manager at GMR Group. He was a law firm partner at SKAA LLP. After 10 years at the law firm he transitioned to in-house at Virtuous Retail and then he was the legal head of Olx India and Awfis Space Solutions. In his spare time he runs endurance races and he has finished ultra runs ranging from 50kms to 75 kms.