Is AI Governance a Contract Problem?

Contracts are one control among several, and the one most likely to give you false confidence. This guide, drawn from a SpotDraft and CLOC roundtable, is about the part a policy document can’t do: deciding, enforcing and finding out when something goes wrong.

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Your AI Policy Is Approved. Is Anyone Following It?

A policy gets drafted, approved and filed. Then the business carries on in tools nobody reviewed, at a speed the approval process was never built for. This guide covers the part a document can’t do: who decides, who enforces and who finds out when something goes wrong.

What’s Inside?

01

Governance Is Not New. AI Moved the Deadline.
Privacy governance has been a serious discipline for over a decade. What changed is speed and scale. Learn why documentation-only governance fails, and why the correction may not be gradual.

02

The Four Questions Your Policy Has to Answer
Who owns the data? Who makes the decision? Who manages the outcome when something goes wrong? Who controls how information moves? Run your draft against all four and mark every “it depends”.

03

What Contracts Can and Cannot Do
Know which protections are enforceable and which are only directional. Covers tailored AI addenda, where to spend your leverage on training data, and why audit rights are a weaker control than they look.

04

The Working Checklist
What belongs in an AI policy, questions to answer before you sign, and safeguards to build in, ready to use in your next review.

Is AI Governance a Contract Problem?
"If the legal function isn't aligned to what the organization is trying to achieve, metrics become noise."
Sarah Irwin
Phil Redhead
Head of Legal Recruitment, Leonid Group Ltd
“The biggest shift is moving from a ‘tool-first’ mindset to a ‘problem-first’ one... AI isn’t magic dust; it’s a strategic enabler that amplifies good processes and exposes weak ones.”
Alessandra Colaci
Alessandra Colaci
CEO and Founder, Legal +AI
“A fancy CLM or AI system will merely automate whatever process you've got - good or bad. The real competitive advantage comes from smart process design, clear roles, and aligning legal and business teams before technology.”
Lucy Bassli
Lucy Bassli
Former AGC, Microsoft
“ROI starts with identifying the exact pain point you want to solve — deal velocity, risk calibration, visibility, or business enablement. Without that clarity, you're fishing in the dark, no matter how shiny your tools are.”
Akshay Verma
Akshay Verma
Chief Operating Officer, SpotDraft
Is AI Governance a Contract Problem?