Agreement management vs. full CLM

The typical IAM user, said Gaurav Oberoi, group vice president of product management at Docusign, is either looking to manage post-signature contract processes -- such as renewals or making sure discounts or price increases are enforced -- or companies that anticipate high growth in the coming quarters and need a way to manage that with automation.

While large sales tech and HR tech vendors strive to get customers to adopt full, AI-powered platforms with broad strategic roadmaps, more specialized players, such as Docusign, are very tactical in their application of AI agents for their claimed 1.8 million customers.

Docusign looked at its users' pain points when managing contracts -- such as an AI tool that turns a PDF into a fillable form, which is a "pain in the butt" to do manually -- and automated them, said Alan Pelz-Sharpe, founder of Deep Analysis.

"This is the sort of thing that people should be building, really," Pelz-Sharpe said. "[Some vendors are] looking for very complex use cases -- telling us we're going to get rid of SAP, telling us we're going to reduce our workforce by 10,000 people. The fact is, these are the kind of use cases people are looking for. I mean, it automates a lot of drudge work."

As it annexes electronic signature-adjacent territory to maintain relevance as e-sigs become more commoditized and ubiquitous on platforms like Box, there likely is space for Docusign's IAM in a crowded, mature contract lifecycle management (CLM) market -- even though it technically isn't a full CLM suite, Pelz-Sharpe continued. Truth be told, most companies don't need a full-featured CLM and the companies that have bought them end up using just a fraction of their features.

"Most CLMs are really document management systems," Pelz-Sharpe said. "They don't manage the lifecycle -- which suggests it's used from the contract's creation to its deletion or archiving, and each step of that lifecycle has a set of tasks and triggers. Almost nobody uses CLM like that."

HR departments send out "endless" agreements, similar to contracts, such as job offers, employment contracts, nondisclosures and independent contractor agreements. Those that already use Docusign will also find utility plugging in the new AI tools to manage those agreements, he added.

The common thread most IAM users have -- and Oberoi anticipates will increase -- is the need for experienced, knowledgeable workers to automate tasks below their pay grade.

"We hear things," Oberoi said, "like 'Yeah, right now you just email the legal team, procurement team, sales team or deal desk. The emails are everywhere'; or 'At the end of quarter, salespeople don't know where things are'; 'It takes forever to chase down approvals'; or 'I have my high-paid lawyers negotiating and drafting very sort of rote and commonplace things like, "Hey vendor, thou shalt not auto-renew," or "thou cannot use my logo," whereas I want the senior counsel on deals helping me negotiate more complex things.'"

But to solve these problems today, he concluded, they're not ready to buy a big system. That is the audience Docusign hopes to woo.

Docusign previewed its new AI agents and tools at its Momentum user conference.

Don Fluckinger is a seasoned B2B technology journalist with more than 30 years of experience, specializing in enterprise IT, digital experience and content management. As a senior news writer at Informa TechTarget, he delivers award-winning analysis that helps IT and business leaders navigate complex technologies to enhance customer and employee experiences. Got a tip? Email him.