AI summary: understand a contract at a glance

What's in it for you

Reading a 30-page contract just to understand the key terms costs 15 to 30 minutes per document. The AI summary gets you the essentials in under a minute — organised by topic, with concrete values and clauses rather than vague filler. For portfolio reviews, audits and handovers, that's the difference between “we roughly know" and “we can report specifics".

How it works

1. Open the summary for a single document

Go to Contracts („Verträge").

Open a contract from the list. To the right of the document viewer you'll see two tabs:

Document („Dokument") — the original PDF view.
Summary („Zusammenfassung") — the AI-generated summary of the current document.

Click Summary.

The content is broken down by topic, each with bullet points. Typical sections:

Contracting parties — who is involved, with address and role.
Subject matter — what the contract actually covers.
Fees and reporting — prices, commissions, reporting obligations.
Liability — limits and exclusions.
Term and termination, confidentiality, other — depending on the contract type.

2. Open the contract-level summary

For contracts with several documents — a master agreement plus side letters and annexes — ContractHero also rolls the individual summaries up into a single view at contract level.

In the right-hand sidebar, click the Summary tab (purple sparkle icon). The header reads “summary of the contract" („Zusammenfassung des Vertrags") with the purple sparkle marking AI-generated content.

The content follows the same topic structure. The advantage is that you no longer click through document by document — you take in the whole contract on one page.

3. Keeping the summary current

As soon as you add a new document or replace an existing one, the summary is regenerated automatically. There is nothing to trigger by hand.

Which contracts benefit most?

Long contracts with complex clauses — supply agreements, framework agreements, shareholder agreements. This is where the time saving is largest.
Contracts with several annexes — the rolled-up view saves all the clicking back and forth.
Legacy contracts during onboarding — when you migrate hundreds of contracts into ContractHero, the summary makes triage fast.

For very short contracts — a one-page NDA, say — the summary ends up almost as long as the original. There, just read the PDF.

Common questions

Which file formats get summarised?
PDF documents. Other formats such as Word or Excel are not summarised directly — convert them to PDF before uploading.

Does it work on scanned contracts?
Yes. ContractHero first runs OCR to extract the text from the scan, then generates the summary. With very poor scan quality, accuracy drops.

Which languages does it handle?
Reliably German and English. For other languages the result depends on the contract's structure — talk to us if you process other languages systematically.

How long does a summary take to appear?
Usually a few minutes after upload. Large documents or load spikes can take a little longer.

Can I edit or extend the summary?
The AI summary is a read-only view. Keep your own annotations in the contract's notes field or in a structured contract field.

Is our data used to train the AI?
No. Your contract data is used solely for analysis inside your own account — no training, no data flowing to third parties.

Where's the summary on a contract with only one document?
In both places. The Summary tab above the document shows that single document; the sidebar view shows the same content as the contract summary.

What happens if I delete or replace a document?
The contract summary is regenerated automatically and reflects only the documents currently linked.

Is the summary included in exports?
Not in the current export scope — it's a live view in the web app. Talk to us if you need it exported systematically.

Good to know

Purple sparkle means AI. Throughout ContractHero, the purple sparkle marks AI-generated content, including this summary. On AI-prefilled contract fields, the same icon means “not yet verified by a human".
The rolled-up view earns its keep with annexes. For a framework agreement with five annexes, it saves roughly 20 minutes per review compared with going document by document.
A summary is not a legal reading. The AI summarises; it does not interpret law. For legal decisions, check the original text or involve your legal team.
Personal data appears as written. Whatever stands in the PDF appears in the summary. If you need to restrict who sees sensitive contracts, handle that through roles and teams rather than by hiding the summary.
The first stop for new joiners. Anyone being brought into an existing contract base gets up to speed far faster through summaries than through the original documents.

Updated on: 09/04/2026

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