How does contract analysis work?

The screenshots in this article show the German interface. Where a button or field matters, the German label is given in brackets so you can match text to screenshot.

ContractHero's AI reads every contract you upload and pre-fills your contract fields from it. This article explains where those values come from, how to recognise them, and how to verify them — field by field, contract by contract, or in bulk.

What's in it for you

The AI takes over the dullest job there is: moving data out of a PDF into structured fields. What used to take ten minutes of manual typing per contract now takes under a minute to check. You can also see at a glance which fields the AI has already pre-filled (purple icon) and which ones still need your confirmation. Well-maintained fields mean better reporting, sharper filters and reminders you can rely on.

How it works

1. Upload a contract — the AI analyses it automatically

As soon as you upload a contract (see Related articles: How can contracts be uploaded in the system?), AI contract analysis starts automatically in the background. There is nothing for you to trigger.

After a short processing time — usually a few seconds to a few minutes — the recognised values appear in the contract fields. Pre-filled fields are marked with a purple sparkle icon. That icon tells you the value came from the AI analysis and has not been verified by you yet.

2. Which fields does the AI fill?

The AI fills every field that has an AI prompt stored for it in the contract field builder. To see which fields those are, go to:

Settings [Einstellungen] → Field builder [Feldbaukasten] → Contract field builder [Vertragsfeldbaukasten]

Fields with a stored AI prompt are marked with a blue spark symbol next to the field name in the "Your fields" [Ihre Felder] list. Who maintains the prompts, and which fields get analysed at all, is controlled centrally in that one place.

Note: Settings are only visible if you hold the necessary permissions in the account — account owner, or the field builder permission.

3. Find the contracts that still need reviewing

Every contract whose AI values are still waiting to be verified shows up in two places:

On the dashboard (Overview) under the entry "Review analysed contracts" [Analysierte Verträge überprüfen].

In the contract list: click the view "View: AI-analysed contracts" [Ansicht: KI-analysierte Verträge] at the top — it carries a warning icon and a "Reset filters" [Filter zurücksetzen] button.

The list shows only contracts that still contain unverified AI values.

4. Option A — verify all fields of one contract at once

Open a contract from the list. At the top you will see a banner telling you that you can check all AI data fields at once, and that fields stay editable after you have confirmed them through AI verification.

Click "Verify all" [Alle verifizieren] on the right. Every pre-filled field is confirmed as checked in one go, and the contract then disappears from the "Review analysed contracts" list.

5. Option B — verify field by field

If you would rather check individual values, click the AI suggestion on each field and confirm it — or correct it first and then confirm. Below the contract master data, a counter shows your progress as "X / Y Verified" [X / Y Verifiziert], for example "6 / 7 Verifiziert".

6. Option C — verify several contracts in one block

In the contract list under "View: AI-analysed contracts" [Ansicht: KI-analysierte Verträge] there is a banner at the top as well, inviting you to verify all AI data fields at once and noting that you can still edit them later. Use its "Verify all" [Alle verifizieren] button to confirm the AI values of every contract visible in the list at the same time. Very useful during onboarding or after a bulk import.

Common questions

Are scanned contracts analysed too?
Yes. ContractHero uses OCR (optical character recognition) to turn scanned PDFs into machine-readable text before the AI analysis starts. Recognition accuracy can drop if the scan quality is very poor.

What does the purple sparkle icon on a field mean?
The value was pre-filled by the AI and has not been verified by you yet. The icon disappears once you confirm the value.

What does the blue spark symbol in the field builder mean?
It shows that an AI prompt is stored for that field, so the AI will try to fill it on every upload. This is a different meaning from the purple sparkle icon on a contract, which shows verification status.

What happens if the AI reads a field incorrectly?
Overwrite the value with the correct content in edit mode and confirm it. Your manual entry wins and is kept — even if the AI analysis runs again later.

What happens if a field was left empty?
If the AI could not identify the value unambiguously in the contract, the field stays empty. You can fill it in by hand, and the field then counts as verified straight away.

Can I have existing contracts analysed after the fact?
Yes, using the AI retrigger. It starts the AI analysis again for selected contracts or for your entire existing portfolio — useful when you have added a new prompt and want the field populated retrospectively.

Which languages does the analysis work in?
ContractHero supports German and English as a minimum, including bilingual contracts. The prompt itself may mix languages, for example "commencement date oder Vertragsbeginn".

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

Good to know

Maintaining prompts pays off. The more precisely the prompts in the contract field builder are written, the less correcting you have to do when verifying. A little time invested in clean prompts saves hours later.
Test before you go live. For new or changed prompts, try them on 5–10 typical existing contracts using the "Test in contract" [Im Vertrag testen] button in the field builder. That shows you immediately whether the AI pulls the right value.
Handle bulk verification with care. "Verify all" is efficient, but it also glosses over mistakes. For individually important contracts, a field-by-field check is worth the time — above all for amounts and deadlines.
Verification is a tick, not a lock. You can keep editing a field after it has been marked "Verified" [Verifiziert]. The tick only says: a human has seen this and confirmed it.
We help with the setup. During onboarding we go through your most important fields and prompts together, so your data quality is clean from day one.

Updated on: 08/26/2026

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