Icertis: How an AI Agent Saved $70 Million Annually on Contracts and Freed People from Routine

Large corporations lose millions of dollars annually due to inefficient contract management. Non-compliance, missed discounts, overdue renewals – all hit the bottom line. However, Icertis has demonstrated that with the help of an AI agent, not only can these losses be prevented, but multi-million dollar savings can also be achieved: one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies saved $70 million per year by managing over 250,000 contracts.

In every large company, a pile of contracts – with suppliers, customers, partners. These hold huge opportunities for savings and risks. But to find them, one must sift through thousands of pages of legal text, keep hundreds of terms and deadlines in mind. This is routine work that consumes the time of valuable specialists, leads to errors, and missed opportunities. AI agents can take on this routine, transforming contracts from dead weight into a strategic asset.

The Problem: Contracts as a Black Hole for Resources

In any large company, contracts are not just documents; they are the foundation of all commercial relationships. However, their sheer volume, complex language, and constant changes make managing them a true nightmare. Thousands of supplier agreements contain hidden commercial intelligence that remains untapped.

Procurement staff and legal teams spend hours on routine tasks: searching for specific clauses, verifying terms, tracking deadlines. This not only consumes valuable time but also leads to human errors. As a result, companies miss out on discount opportunities, overlook risks, pay more than they could, and lose millions of dollars.

Why Traditional Systems Fell Short

Companies have long used various Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) systems, but most of them are merely document repositories with basic search functions. They cannot analyze contract content, identify hidden opportunities, or automatically warn of risks. When it comes to analyzing thousands of contracts, traditional CLM systems are powerless. What was needed was a tool that not only stores information but also understands it and can act on that data.

This is why Icertis turned to AI agents: a system that can independently "read" contracts, extract commercial value from them, and translate it into real savings.

What the Icertis AI Agent Can Do

The Icertis AI agent was designed as an intelligent assistant that transforms static contracts into strategic assets. The key idea was to give the agent the ability not just to store data, but to understand its meaning and interrelationships. It acts as an orchestrator that manages several key tasks:

• Commercial Terms Analysis. The agent automatically analyzes thousands of contracts, identifying discrepancies in pricing from different suppliers, evaluating performance against obligations, and finding opportunities for volume discounts or rebates.
• Risk Assessment. By correlating contract data with external supplier information, the agent predicts potential risks related to non-compliance or financial instability, and suggests strategies to mitigate them.
• Routine Automation. The agent handles low-risk but labor-intensive tasks such as clause checks, deadline reminders, identification of risky language, and drafting of responses.

All of this allows the procurement department to focus on strategic negotiations rather than routine tasks.

Implementation: From Pilot to Multi-Million Dollar Savings

The implementation of the AI agent began by focusing on the most obvious pain points. For example, one of Icertis's clients, a large European telecommunications operator, faced the need for supplier rationalization after a merger. The AI agent helped identify duplicate agreements and opportunities for procurement consolidation, leading to $35 million in savings. Another example, a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, used the AI agent to manage over 250,000 supplier contracts in 17 languages, saving $70 million annually through stricter enforcement of commercial terms.

Icertis emphasizes that the goal of the AI agent is not to replace humans, but to augment them. AI handles the routine, while humans make strategic decisions. This ensures a balance between efficiency and human judgment.

Results

These figures represent not just savings, but the freeing up of a vast amount of human time that can now be directed towards more strategic tasks, rather than routine document verification.

How to Implement This in Your Company

If contract management in your company is manual labor and constant losses, an AI agent can be a solution. Here's where to start:

• Contract Inventory. Gather all contracts into a single database, if you don't have one already. This is the foundation for the AI agent's work.
• Identify the Most Painful Points. Where do you most often lose money, where do employees spend the most time on routine tasks, where are the risks highest? Start with these areas.
• Begin with Audit and Analysis. The AI agent can start by analyzing existing contracts to identify hidden opportunities and risks, even without full process automation.
• Gradual Automation. Hand over routine tasks to the AI agent step by step: first discount identification, then term verification, then reminders and draft responses.

If this case sounds like what's happening in your company, our manager can help: he'll analyze your business and niche for free and point out where an AI agent would bring a real result in your case. Message the manager