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Spellbook Unveils First-Ever AI-Powered State of Contracts Report, Analyzing 250 Deal Points to Reveal Market Shifts

via Business Wire

Legal AI leader democratizes data-driven contract intelligence, exposing how tariffs, AI clauses, and market conditions are reshaping deal terms globally

Spellbook, the leading AI solution for transactional lawyers, today launched its inaugural State of Contracts 2026 report – drawing fascinating statistical insights from hundreds of thousands of contracts reviewed on its platform from across 30 countries. This first-of-its-kind report delivers AI-powered contract analysis at a scale previously impossible, democratizing market intelligence – once exclusive to large firms with extensive resources – while shaping a future of data-driven negotiation.

“The speed and quality of contracts has been constrained by our ability to know what is normal," said Scott Stevenson, CEO and co-founder of Spellbook. "When lawyers can instantly benchmark their contracts against thousands of similar deals – filtered by industry, deal size, and geography – they negotiate from concrete knowledge, not intuition or precedent files gathering dust. Deals close faster, terms improve, and contracts finally move at the speed of commerce."

Market data transparency is transforming an industry where 60% of small businesses can't afford legal services and smaller practices and in-house teams negotiate blindly. Spellbook's new Market Comparison feature (currently in beta) is leveling the playing field through an opt-in "give to get" model, where lawyers contribute anonymized deal statistics to access powerful real-time market intelligence that helps them win negotiations with data, not guesswork. Today’s report provides a glimpse into the value of clause-level benchmarks and big picture-trends by tracking how contract language is evolving to global forces.

“Lawyers are sick of ‘AI slop’: outputs that look correct but that aren’t grounded in data that they can actually inspect or show to a counterparty,” continues Stevenson. “We’re excited to combine this leading market intelligence with Spellbook’s AI contract review.”

Spellbook’s State of Contracts 2026 provides statistics on over 250 deal points across 14 agreement types. Additionally, it highlights a few key stories:

Key Findings from the 2026 Contract Trends Report:

  • The Tariff Effect on Procurement Agreements: Tariff mentions in contracts jumped nearly 50% between June and October, with the phrase "threatened tariff" now appearing in pricing clauses as parties allocate risk for anticipated—not just enacted—trade policies. Contracts have become a real-time seismograph for economic and political disruption.
  • AI Clauses Taking Root: "AI Usage Policy" has emerged as a standalone clause type across software agreements in just two years, revealing growing concern around AI output ownership and what happens when training data includes confidential information, marking one of the fastest adoptions of new contract language in recent history.
  • The Myth of Standard Liability Caps: While most lawyers assume liability caps default to "12 months of fees," the data reveals that 50% of master service agreements don't specify any calculation method. Only 30% actually tie caps to fees paid, challenging conventional assumptions about standard terms.
  • NDAs Present Hidden Risk: One in three NDAs require confidentiality forever and carry unlimited liability, while 85% don't include residuals rights. This means executives cannot use general knowledge gained during business discussions, creating significant long-term obligations.
  • Subscription Lock-In Grows More Restrictive: Despite the subscription model’s promise for flexibility, 60% of B2B software agreements auto-renew for another year, and 40% don’t allow termination for convenience during the initial term – proving the contract has become SaaS's stickiest feature.

The full 2026 Contract Trends Report is available for download at https://www.spellbook.legal/state-of-legal-contracts.

The Future of Data-Driven Negotiation

As AI democratizes contract intelligence, the $1 trillion transactional legal services market represents just the beginning of what's possible when legal friction disappears. Data-driven negotiation is already reshaping deal dynamics. With lawyers billing $1,000/hour, changing just 10 words in a contract can save clients millions – yet AI-powered analysis costs mere cents per word. The economics are compelling: every unusual contract term now comes with instant data showing exactly how it deviates from market standards. Companies negotiating without this intelligence increasingly leave benefits on the table, while those using Spellbook's data-driven approach are already winning better terms and closing deals faster.

Spellbook will launch Market Comparison into General Availability in early January. Legal teams can request early access by booking a demo at spellbook.com.

About Spellbook

Spellbook launched the first GenAI tool for lawyers in 2022 and continues to be the leading provider of legal AI for transactional law. It's helped nearly 4,000 legal teams improve their contract workflows and eliminate legal drudgery. Powered by large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-5, Spellbook is optimized to use legal-specific approaches for superior contracting performance. Spellbook is backed by investors including Khosla Ventures, Thomson Reuters Ventures, Inovia Capital, The Legaltech Fund, Bling Capital, and Moxxie Ventures. For more information about Spellbook go to https://www.spellbook.com.

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