ServiceNow December LCO Release Will Transform How You Manage Contracts

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ServiceNow Legal Contract Operations: The December Release That Will Transform How You Manage Contracts, Powered by Now Assist AI

The future of contract management is here; it's intelligent, automated, and remarkably intuitive. ServiceNow is thrilled to announce our December release for Legal Contract Operations (LCO) and Contract Management Pro—a groundbreaking update that harnesses the power of AI to revolutionize how legal/contracts teams work.

If you've ever spent hours combing through contracts to find critical obligations, struggled to quickly understand what's in a lengthy agreement, or wished you could instantly compare document versions, this release is for you. We're introducing exciting new features that will save your team countless hours while dramatically reducing legal risk.

What's New: Five Game-Changing Features

1. Obligation Extraction: Never Miss Another Contract Milestone

Imagine having an AI assistant that reads through your contracts and automatically identifies every single obligation—from payment terms to reporting requirements to renewal deadlines. That's exactly what our new Obligation Extraction feature does.

How it works: Using AI, the system scans your contracts and intelligently extracts obligations, breaking them down into structured data including names, categories, due dates, and responsible parties. These obligations are then transformed into actionable tasks assigned to the right people in your organization.

The impact: No more manual contract reviews. No more missed deadlines. Legal teams that previously spent days identifying contract obligations can now complete this work in minutes. Users simply review and accept the extracted obligations in an intuitive interface—making compliance scalable, efficient, and virtually foolproof.

2. Conversational Search: Ask Questions, Get Answers

What if you could simply ask your contract repository questions in plain English and get instant, accurate answers? With Conversational Search, you can.

How it works: Powered by Now Assist AI, this feature performs semantic search across your entire contract repository. You can ask natural language questions like "Which contracts include auto-renewal clauses?" or "What are the payment terms in the Dell Inc contract?" The AI understands context, searches through both structured data and unstructured document text, and delivers precise answers with source citations.

The impact: Finding information that used to take hours of manual searching now happens in seconds. Legal teams can make faster, better-informed decisions. Business stakeholders get immediate answers without waiting for legal review. It's like having an expert paralegal available 24/7 who has memorized every contract in your repository.

3. Contract Summarization: Understand Agreements in Seconds

Reading and understanding lengthy contracts is time-consuming. Our new Contract Summarization feature gives you the executive summary instantly.

How it works: With a single click on the "Summarize" button, Now Assist analyzes any contract revision, supporting document, or executed PDF and generates a concise, accurate summary highlighting the key points, terms, and conditions.

The impact: Contract reviews that previously took 30-45 minutes can now be completed in under 5 minutes. Users can quickly decide which contracts need deeper review and which can be processed immediately. You can show or hide summaries, expand or collapse details, and share feedback—giving your team a faster path to decision-making without sacrificing accuracy.

4. Document Comparison: See Every Change Instantly

Reviewing redlined documents is critical but tedious work. Document Comparison automates this process with precision.

How it works: Select any two versions of a contract, and the system generates a detailed comparison file that highlights every difference between the documents.

The impact: What used to take lawyers hours of careful line-by-line review now happens automatically in moments. You'll catch every modification, addition, and deletion with confidence. This massive time savings allows legal teams to scale their review process while reducing the risk of overlooking critical changes. Whether you're reviewing vendor redlines or tracking internal revisions, you'll have complete visibility into what changed between any two versions.

5. Contract Amendment Workflow: Streamline Changes from Start to Finish

Business conditions change, and your contracts need to keep pace. Our simplified Amendment workflow makes modifying active contracts straightforward and compliant.

How it works: Users can request amendments directly from the Employee Center or Contract Workspace. The system handles the complete lifecycle—from drafting and versioning to redlining and collecting signatures. Every change is tracked, and the contract repository automatically reflects the latest amendment with a complete audit trail.

The impact: Managing contract amendments no longer requires complex workarounds or separate systems. Everything stays centralized, maintaining a single source of truth. Legal teams can confidently track what changed, when, and why—ensuring compliance while adapting to evolving business needs, regulatory requirements, and operational updates.

Enhanced Capabilities You'll Love

Beyond these five major features, we've added valuable enhancements:

• Clause Library Improvements: Easily toggle between alternate and fallback versions of clauses, giving you flexibility in contract creation
• Large Document Support: All AI features—including metadata extraction, contract review, and obligation extraction—now support documents up to 200 pages

The AI Advantage: Work Smarter, Not Harder

What ties all these features together is our commitment to practical, powerful AI. We're not adding AI for its own sake—we're solving real problems that legal teams face every day:

• Eliminate manual work that doesn't require human judgment
• Accelerate routine tasks so your team can focus on strategic work
• Reduce legal risk through consistent, thorough analysis
• Scale your operations without proportionally increasing headcount
• Improve accuracy by removing human error from repetitive tasks

What This Means for Your Legal Team

The December release represents a fundamental shift in how contract management works. Legal operations that were bottlenecks become streamlined processes. Work that required specialized legal expertise becomes accessible to trained business users. Risk management that depended on manual diligence becomes automated and reliable.

Your legal team will spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on high-value work like negotiation strategy, risk assessment, and business partnership. Your business stakeholders will get faster answers and smoother contract processes. Your organization will have better visibility, stronger compliance, and reduced risk.

Getting Started

These powerful features are rolling out as part of our December release. If you're already using ServiceNow Legal Contract Operations or Contract Management Pro, talk to your account team about accessing these capabilities. If you're new to ServiceNow LCO, now is the perfect time to see how AI-powered contract management can transform your legal operations.

The future of contract management isn't just digital—it's intelligent. And that future arrives this December.

Want to learn more? Contact your ServiceNow representative or visit our documentation to explore how these features can work for your organization.