Turning AI into ROI: How the Asia Pacific Region Is Turning to Contract Intelligence to Stay Ahead of Disruption

As Vice President of APAC Sales at Icertis, I have the privilege of meeting with leading organizations across the region to discuss digital transformation and operation excellence. Lately in these meetings I’ve heard a continuous refrain: Disruption is the new normal.

Supply chain volatility, shifting trade relationships, evolving data-privacy regulations, and tight labor markets have amplified operational pressures.

Companies are Turning AI into ROI with Their Contract Management Processes

These leaders recognize that AI offers many opportunities to address these challenges, but often find it difficult to prioritize AI projects that ensure ROI. That’s where Icertis comes in. Contracts cut across business units and value chains, making the AI applications Icertis enables a clear win for forward-looking enterprises.

AI is reshaping contracting at three levels:

• Insights (what’s in our agreements and where are the risks/opportunities?);
• Operations (how fast and consistently we draft/approve), and
• Performance (are negotiated terms realized post-signature?).

Recent data shows that the use of AI for pre-signature in legal operations increased from 19% to 37% and for post-signature from 9% to 35% in just one year. This is clear evidence that teams are operationalizing AI beyond pilots.

Around 70% of surveyed executives view contracts as sources of financial insights

At the C-suite level, leaders already see contracts as financial instruments: around 70% of surveyed executives view contracts as sources of financial insights, and 90% of CEOs believe money is left on the table during negotiations. This pressure makes balance-sheet-relevant contract insights indispensable in sectors from banking to healthcare to manufacturing.  At the same time, we see that AI is enabling always-on monitoring of obligations and entitlements, closing gaps like missed price escalators, rebates, and outcomes-based “true-ups.”

Are you interested in meeting with Icertis customers for face-to-face conversations about contract intelligence? We are hosting India Connect in New Delhi on Nov. 6. Share your information here and we’ll contact you if you are eligible.

42% of organisations are currently implementing AI in their contract management processes, using it to turn static data into dynamic, machine-readable insights. On the Icertis Contract Intelligence platform, advanced analytics, natural language processing, and autonomous AI agents work together to interpret and act on contract terms in real time: detecting risks, surfacing entitlements, and enforcing obligations automatically. The result is not just faster contracting but smarter contracting, where the contract itself becomes a digital twin of the business relationship.

Here are three industry-specific examples of how AI-powered contracting is driving excellence in our region.

Financial Services: Contracts as Core to Risk Management

In the financial sector, contractual commitments define the boundaries of risk, compliance, and profit. Icertis addresses this by embedding AI-driven risk scoring and financial analytics that quantify deviations, flag exposure, and correlate contract insights with balance sheet data, which can thereby improve client onboarding, reduce risk, improve regulatory and reporting compliance, and ultimately, increase revenue growth.

• Through RiskAI, the platform automates regulatory compliance workflows. Generative AI compares contract language to a company’s predefined risk parameters by contract type. Thus, for obligations such as KYC and credit covenants, enterprises can ensure that every agreement aligns with operational risk limits.
• Similarly, Banking and financial enterprises can use contract intelligence to simulate risk exposure and post-execution obligations, treating contracts not as archives but as predictive instruments.

In time, AI-powered contracts could become as indispensable to financial services as the balance sheet itself: continuously updated, fully auditable, and responsive to regulation in real time.

Healthcare and Life Sciences: Compliance Meets Clinical Outcomes

Healthcare delivery is an ecosystem play: scheduling platforms, insurer networks, medical suppliers, and contracted services - from facilities to telemedicine, must operate as one to meet a single patient’s needs. Layer on rising consumer expectations, ongoing regulatory flux, and rapid tech advances … the operational stakes become complex and deeply interdependent.

Icertis Contract Intelligence addresses this complexity head-on: providers gain more intelligent contract creation, automation, and performance insights with lower overheads. The compliance gains are especially compelling: when contracts are centralized and digitized, teams can quickly identify clauses affected by new regulations and, via automated workflows, execute mass amendments and route them to counterparties. This can keep the organization agile as rules evolve. And ‘always-on compliance’ extends across the ecosystem as smart rules flag noncompliant language before execution and guide teams toward approved standards.

Ultimately, contract intelligence can ensure that every contractual commitment, from clinical trials to hospital supply delivery, supports patient outcomes and regulatory confidence simultaneously.

Manufacturing and Supply Chains: Realising Every Negotiated Value

Some of the biggest procurement challenges, such as missed obligations, unclaimed entitlements, slow contract cycles, and exposure to regulatory penalties, can be traced to manual oversight and fragmented processes. Thus, for manufacturing and procurement teams under pressure to source faster without sacrificing margin, the shift will be from contract-as-output to contract-centric sourcing, using CLM to drive the entire source-to-contract motion.

By bringing contracts to the center of the sourcing process, modern, AI-powered contract intelligence software can capture every entitlement, obligation, and rebate in structured form. This will allow procurement teams to seamlessly enforce terms, avoid revenue leakage, and respond proactively to supply chain disruptions. With smart integrations to ERP and procurement platforms, procurement leaders can automate claim verification on negotiated discounts, monitor compliance in real time, and transform contracts into active levers for securing savings, mitigating risk, and optimizing supplier performance.

Ultimately, this paradigm shift turns contracts from static records (reactive) into strategic assets (proactive), driving measurable ROI, resilience, and competitive advantage.

Ultimately, this paradigm shift turns contracts from static records (reactive) into strategic assets (proactive), driving measurable ROI, resilience, and competitive advantage for manufacturing and procurement organizations.

The Future of Enterprise Trust Is Contract Intelligence

Contracts are now the blueprint for enterprise trust. When connected to enterprise systems such as ERP and CRM platforms, AI-powered contracts can synchronize commitments with revenues, costs, and compliance reporting. This convergence can create a “common language of performance”, where every function, from finance to supply chain, operates off a shared, intelligent contract foundation.

From financial institutions mitigating regulatory exposure to healthcare providers accelerating patient care and manufacturers realising negotiated rebates, contract intelligence is reshaping enterprise relationships. AI-powered contracts are no longer administrative necessities - they are strategic assets powering growth, resilience, and trust in an evolving global economy. By making the contract the single source of truth for the rules of business, AI enables organisations not only to know what they’ve promised, but to make sure every promise delivers measurable value.