Contract Agent — ai contract clause monitoring for aec
The Contract Agent reads signed project contracts—owner-architect, design-build, owner-contractor, and subconsultant agreements—and monitors insurance, indemnity, and payment-terms clauses across the project lifecycle. It tracks which clauses fire, which deadlines accrue, and which notices go missing. It is currently shipping in Beta with 1–3 design partners, including A-2, for AEC firms with documented contracts and an active legal function.
- Clause-by-clause monitoring report showing every contract clause hit, fulfilled, missed, or contested, with the specific RFI, email, meeting minute, or payment event that triggered it.
- Insurance, indemnity, and payment-terms watch that flags when a notice is required, a COI renewal is due, or a payment is held outside prompt-pay terms, with the exact clause cited.
- Contract timeline and audit log that stands up in owner-architect disputes, subconsultant claims, and end-of-project closeout, aligned with your dispute-evidence timeline practice.
What the Contract Agent does.
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Multi-contract ingestion
Reads project contracts in their signed form—owner-architect (AIA B-series including B101), design-build, owner-contractor (AIA A-series, ConsensusDocs), subconsultant, and joint-venture agreements. Structures each into a clause library tagged by class (insurance, indemnity, payment, scope, dispute resolution, IP, governing law). Links each clause to the relevant contract clause monitoring workflow so project teams see how it plays out in day-to-day delivery.
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Clause-class monitoring across the project lifecycle
Monitors project events—formal notices, payment runs, COI renewals, milestone completions, RFI responses, change orders, and meeting minutes—against contract obligations. Flags missed or at-risk obligations the day they accrue, not the quarter they billed. Writes each trigger into a structured log that can be handed directly to counsel or paired with the Memory Agent for long-running multi-phase programs.
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Insurance and indemnity tracking
Maintains the live state of insurance certificates (COI), additional-insured endorsements, waiver-of-subrogation language, and indemnity carve-outs across subconsultants and contractors. Tracks expirations at 30/14/3 days out and marks which parties are exposed if a certificate lapses. Identifies indemnity gaps when a new event—like a site incident, design change, or RFI answer—triggers an indemnified party’s obligation, and aligns the record with your dispute-evidence timeline.
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Payment-terms enforcement
Tracks invoiced amounts, approvals, payments, retention held, and prompt-pay-act applicability per state or jurisdiction. Compares each payment event against the specific payment-terms clause, including pay-when-paid, pay-if-paid, and milestone-based triggers. Flags payments held outside contract terms with the clause citation, the number of days outstanding in engineer notation (e.g. ~45 days), and the calculated interest exposure, then links that entry to your scope drift detection record where scope changes drove the dispute.
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Contract timeline and dispute-evidence audit
Builds a per-project contract timeline showing every clause invocation, every obligation accrued and fulfilled, every notice given and received, and every waiver or amendment. Exports a defensible package for owner-architect disputes, subconsultant claims, and insurer review, aligned with your internal dispute-evidence timeline practice. When paired with the Memory Agent, that record carries across phases, from concept through warranty.
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Guardian coverage across Contract, Scope, and RFI
Acts as The Guardian for contract clauses while the Scope Agent watches deliverable drift and the RFI Agent tracks RFI hygiene and notice requirements. Studios deploying all three see one Guardian rule pack across the project’s contractual surface—scope, contract, and communication—mapped back to the same contract clause monitoring and scope drift detection use cases for portfolio-level reporting.
Contract Agent — common questions
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Which contract types does the Contract Agent cover?
The Contract Agent covers owner-architect agreements (including AIA B-series such as B101), design-build agreements, owner-contractor agreements (AIA A-series and ConsensusDocs), subconsultant agreements, and joint-venture agreements. Each contract is ingested in its signed form and broken into a clause library keyed by clause class and party. DB-IPD, CMAR, and bespoke forms are supported as Beta extensions, scoped per deployment and documented in the per-project accuracy report calibrated to your pipeline.
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Is this a contract drafting tool?
No, the Contract Agent monitors signed contracts; it does not draft new ones or propose alternative language. Drafting and negotiation stay with your firm’s legal counsel or retained AEC contracts attorney, who controls the templates and playbook. The agent takes the final signed documents and performs line-by-line monitoring across the project lifecycle, feeding into your contract clause monitoring and dispute-evidence timeline workflows.
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Does it replace our contracts attorney?
It does not replace your contracts attorney; it handles the repetitive monitoring work so counsel can focus on strategy. The agent identifies which clause fired, which trigger event occurred, which obligation or deadline applies, and where you are out of tolerance, often in single-digit minutes per typical project update. Your attorney still owns negotiation, risk posture, dispute strategy, and material judgment calls, now supported by a complete, timestamped contract timeline they do not have to reconstruct from email.
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How does this differ from generic contract-management software?
Generic tools track documents and dates; the Contract Agent works from AEC-specific clause libraries tied to project events. It understands notices tied to RFIs, COI lifecycles for design teams and subconsultants, prompt-pay applicability by jurisdiction, and change-order pathways that affect both scope and payment. It also sits alongside the Scope Agent, RFI Agent, and Memory Agent, so clause monitoring connects directly to scope drift detection and dispute-evidence timelines, rather than living in a separate silo.
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How does it handle multi-party JV agreements?
For joint-venture agreements, the Contract Agent treats each JV contract as a separate object, monitoring each party’s clause obligations independently. It then surfaces cross-party events, such as one party’s notice triggering another party’s indemnity or insurance obligation, and highlights where duties diverge between architect, contractor, and subconsultants. This is particularly useful in design-build joint ventures where overlapping obligations can otherwise be missed until a dispute or claim arises.
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What does the Beta cohort look like?
The Beta cohort is currently 1–3 design partners, including A-2 as a contracted deployment, with each project running under real-world contract pressure. Cohort criteria include documented project contracts, an in-house counsel or retained AEC contracts attorney for review oversight, and an active portfolio of at least 5 concurrent engagements. Each Beta deployment ships with a per-project accuracy report calibrated per deployment, and firms apply via the “Apply to the Beta” CTA for scoping under MSA + Appendix.
Want early access?
The Contract Agent watches the clauses that bite—insurance, indemnity, payment terms, and dispute-resolution triggers—across the project lifecycle. Beta cohort is open to firms with documented contracts and a legal/contracts function for review oversight.
Apply to the beta