What’s next for contract markup specialists?

The contract markup (also known as contract redlining) market has been in an unpredictable situation in recent years. These providers, which solely focus on automated or semi-automated contract markup, often sell to procurement and legal departments and promise greatly expedited contract review times. We have covered many of these providers: BlackBoiler, LegalSifter, LexCheck, DocJuris, Lexion (acquired by Docusign), etc.
In many cases, however, these tools complement broader contract lifecycle management (CLM) software. In other words, they are not the only solutions organizations use for contract-related pain points. The development of generative AI has led to more widespread contract redlining capabilities, including from CLM solutions.

As a result, dedicated contract markup providers have been forced to answer the natural questions ‘Why should organizations buy a separate tool for redlining when CLM providers feature similar functionalities?’ and ‘Why should organizations that are considering the purchase of CLM software alongside a markup tool choose a markup provider that does not cover the full contract lifecycle in the way a CLM tool does?