Sahel AI, an innovative Artificial Intelligence startup, has unveiled its platform designed to help legal professionals work more efficiently by automating contract drafting and review processes. The platform aims to save law firms and in-house legal teams hours spent on repetitive contract-related tasks, enabling them to focus on higher-value activities.
Integration with Microsoft Word for Seamless Workflow
As a Microsoft partner, Sahel AI integrates directly with Microsoft Word, ensuring that lawyers can maintain their familiar workflow and editing features. The platform includes three key modules: drafting, review, and chat. The drafting module allows lawyers to create new contracts from scratch, review specific sections, and access a comprehensive library of clauses to streamline the drafting process.
On the review side, Sahel AI identifies potential legal risks and red flags, providing detailed explanations and actionable suggestions to address them. The platform flags non-compliant sections based on an organization’s internal standards and rules, and extracts critical clauses for quick analysis. Additionally, Sahel AI’s MS Word Add-in comes with a built-in chat assistant, allowing users to ask questions about their contracts and receive instant responses.
Streamlining Contract Review and Reducing Workload
Jamiu Idowu, CEO of Sahel AI, expressed excitement about the new AI solution, emphasizing its potential to reduce the time spent on tedious contract tasks. “Lawyers are stretched thin, and our goal is to automate the repetitive portions of contract work so they can focus on client advocacy and value-added services,” he said. Idowu highlighted that the platform’s review feature cuts contract review time by up to 80%, saving transactional lawyers up to 15 hours per week.
The legal industry, traditionally slow to embrace technology due to its reliance on text-based work, is poised for transformation through generative AI. According to a Goldman Sachs report, as much as 44% of legal work can be fully automated. However, Idowu clarified that Sahel AI is not about replacing lawyers but enhancing their productivity, allowing them to allocate more time to strategic and high-value tasks.
Commitment to Data Security and Privacy
Sahel AI is committed to ensuring the security and privacy of customer data. Akintunde Agunbiade, Head of Legal Engineering at Sahel AI, reassured users that the platform does not train on customer data. The company has also created a Trust Center, where users can view the security controls in place, compliance with standards such as GDPR, and the security certifications achieved by Sahel AI.
Serving a Diverse Range of Industries
Sahel AI is designed for law firms and in-house legal teams within multinational and enterprise-level organizations across various sectors, including energy, construction and real estate, telecoms, banking and finance, retail, FMCGs, and more. By automating repetitive tasks, the platform significantly reduces contract turnaround times and enables legal departments to focus on more strategic, high-value work.
