17% of Large Companies Now Using AI Contract Review Tools

New survey data from LegalOn has shown that 17% of large companies are now using AI contract review software, with a further 21% evaluating the time-saving technology. This matters because: it drives inhouse efficiency, and may also help shift expectations more broadly about how contracts should be handled, both internally and by external advisers to those corporates.

Now, 17% may not sound like a lot, but given historical rates of legal AI adoption, this is a major boost. In fact, if one combines the data for small and large companies (i.e. those above and below 1000 staff – see graphs below), then just in the last 12 months use of such tools inhouse has increased from 8% to 14%.

LegalOn Data, 2025
LegalOn Data, 2025 (for large and small companies)

If that trend were to continue over the next few years, with those evaluating such tech then moving to adoption, then we’d be witnessing a significant change in how many inhouse legal teams handle contract review, whether that’s part of a CLM platform, a dedicated contract management and review system, or some other AI-based review approach.

The LegalOn survey also found that, understandably, inhouse lawyers were spending several hours per day just on contract review, with the desire to use legal AI tech mainly driven by the ‘need for speed’, as this site calls it. The hope of reducing dull work is also a key reason. Other drivers included: reducing risk, providing a consistent approach to review, and generally saving on costs and resources within the inhouse legal team.

Elsewhere in the survey, LegalOn found that despite the clear benefits of using playbooks inhouse for contract review, only 7% of large companies had ‘fully comprehensive’ playbooks. But, more positively 34% had ‘some’ comprehensive playbooks.

Why does that matter?

Well, you are limited in what can be achieved with AI doc review if you don’t have a crystal-clear idea of what you’re comparing the document on your desk with. I.e. without a playbook of some type that’s comprehensive (such as covering nearly all expected clauses and terms in that type of contract), as well as playbooks to cover the most frequently handled contracts….then AI review can’t do all it’s capable of.

But, if you combine playbooks with genAI (and other tech) then you have a really useful tool that allows you to move much faster and (hopefully) with more consistency when it comes to review. And that’s an area that LegalOn is very focused on right now.

Overall, this is good news for the legal tech sector, given that there are 1,000s of companies with inhouse legal teams, all of which would benefit from the above.

Last word to Daniel Lewis, US CEO, who said: ‘This survey confirms what we are hearing from legal teams every day. AI for contract review is no longer a hypothetical–it’s becoming an essential tool to save time, turnaround contracts faster, and automate tedious work. We’re fast approaching the point when lawyers will think, ‘How did I ever do this work without AI?’’

You can find the full report here.

(Note: the survey covered 286 professionals, mostly lawyers inside inhouse legal teams.)