World Commerce & Contracting (WorldCC) has released its annual AI report, revealing that 42 percent of organisations have adopted the technology within their contracting practices, which is said to confirm continued growth in adoption though at a relatively measured pace.
The not-for-profit association’s ‘AI Adoption in Contracting 2025’ report, supported by Icertis and the CCM Institute, explores everything from automating tedious tasks to boosting contract analytics and managing risk.
While there is strong support for AI’s role in improving contract management, the research also discovered a number of barriers to adoption, including security and data privacy, resistance to change, trust in AI outputs, lack of budget, integration challenges, and lack of resources and policies.
However, practitioners are expecting a number of benefits for contracting, such as AI’s ability to accurately summarise contracts, free up time for more strategic work, generate contracts, analyse risk and compliance, and find areas of contract value erosion.
Tim Cummins, WorldCC’s President, said the report reveals a cautiously optimistic view of AI in commercial and contract management (CCM), recognising its transformative potential while urging careful, ethical and phased adoption.
“By grasping this opportunity, the CCM discipline can lead the charge in leveraging AI as a strategic enabler of value creation. The encouraging signs are reinforced by the fact that organisations are taking steps to overcome barriers such as security concerns, data quality issues and resistance to change,” he said.
“However, it is entirely understandable that use cases must be prioritised and the contracting process may not always make the list. We urge organisations to consider whether that omission is the result of careful assessment, or simply a failure to grasp the extent of benefit that can be delivered. AI-enabled contracting contracts permeate every corner of the business, offering not only increased efficiency but also a path to strong financial returns.”
