SpotDraft, the leading contract lifecycle management platform for in-house legal teams, has officially published the results from its 2025 AI Impact Report.
Going by the available details, the stated report arrives bearing an overarching claim that contract management has emerged as the area which legal professionals believe will be most transformed by AI. More on the same would reveal how this study treads up a long distance to showcase how 70.8% of respondents expect significant AI-driven transformation in contract management over the next three years, with clause identification and analysis (74%) topping the list of desired improvements.
If we look past clause analysis, legal teams were found to be considering AI in the context of enhancing contract drafting and template generation (66.5%), improving repository management (51.3%) and offering better negotiation support (51.3%).
“We see AI as a way to let lawyers be lawyers again,” said Tommie Tavares-Ferreira, Head of Legal Operations at Cedar. “By handling the routine work, it frees teams to focus on the strategic advice that actually requires human judgment.”
Next up, we must dig into the fact that, among daily AI users, 91% went on to report productivity increases. Out of that lot, 29% experienced significant increases. Against this, no more than 59% of users, who leveraged AI on a monthly basis, reported improvements.
Such a detail treads up a long distance to suggest how consistent engagement is essential to realizing AI’s benefits.
Next up, SpotDraft’s report found experience to cut down on ethical concerns over time. We get to say so because legal professionals with hands-on AI experience would express fewer significant ethical concerns during the survey than those who rarely use these technologies, thus challenging assumptions that deeper exposure heightens ethical anxieties.
Another detail worth a mention here is rooted in the way legal roles appeared to remain irreplaceable by AI. You see, even with widespread fears about job displacement, an estimated 71.4% of organizations reported no changes to roles or staffing due to AI implementation. Many teams, in fact, revealed they are actively growing alongside AI adoption.
Rounding up highlights would be a piece of detail claiming how essential skills are now quickly evolving. This translates to how strategic thinking (30%), advanced legal knowledge (20%), and understanding AI tools (27%) emerged as the most critical skills for future legal professionals, signaling a shift in talent requirements.
Among other things, we ought to mention that, in the case of most legal teams; AI saves between one and five hours per week (40.7% of respondents).
Beyond that, we must also mention how these results from 2025 AI Impact Report were reached upon after collecting data from 192 legal professionals, primarily from North America. The study was conducted in partnership with In-House Connect and entertained legal decision-makers in organizations of all sizes across multiple industries.
“The data is clear—contract management is where AI is delivering the most immediate value for legal teams,” said Akshay Verma, COO of SpotDraft. “As teams integrate AI consistently, contracts transform from administrative burdens into strategic assets. The teams gaining the most aren’t just automating reviews—they’re unlocking business intelligence previously trapped in contract language and shifting their focus from document management to strategic decision-making.”
