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New AI tools from Docusign aim to make contracts easier to understand and quicker to prepare. For people signing documents like leases or purchases agreements, a new AI feature will make it possible to request an overall summary of the contract and its key terms. Users will also be able to ask questions about the document, which for consumer agreements could include requesting details about cancellation procedures, fees that may apply, relevant timelines, or terms of a warranty. The whole purpose of this is to allow and provide a level of trust to the signer so that they understand what is it that they’re signing, says Mangesh Bhandarkar, GVP of product management at Docusign, and help them get through the signature process in a much quicker way, with a better understanding of the agreement itself. In a demonstration for Fast Company, Bhandarkar highlighted how the AI could generate a basic summary of a residential lease, automatically pulling out key terms like the rental period, monthly rent, and landlord and tenant responsibilities for various utilities. The AI also answered questions about other terms like pet fees, including links to relevant, highlighted sections of the document. [Image: Docusign] AIs use in the legal field has been controversial, with some AI legal research and analysis plagued by incorrect answers and AI hallucinations. But Bhandarkar says the company feels confident in its Iris AI system, which has been honed specifically to handle contracts based on Docusigns specialized dataset of written agreements and designed to provide in-document citations. We make sure that it is not hallucinating information that is not in the document, he says. Still, Bhandarkar emphasizes that Docusign isnt offering formal legal advice or a substitute for getting a thorough understanding of a contract before signing it. Rather, he says, the company is trying to give a better understanding and a quicker understanding of the makeup of the agreement with relevant data that could help you make an informed decision about the actions you’re taking. [Image: Docusign] Docusign, which says it helps more than 1 billion people sign contracts every year, reports a recent survey indicated that nearly 75% of contract signers would feel more confident with a plain-English AI summary of the documents theyre signing. And some users, Bhandarkar says, are already using general-purpose AI tools like ChatGPT for help in understanding contracts. Theyll now be able to access AI thats both specifically optimized for the task and integrated into the platform theyre already using to review and sign the agreement. The new feature will likely also help organizations that are creating contracts for consumers to sign, since they may see contracts signed faster and with fewer inquiries. Document creators at all plan levels will be able to choose whether to enable signers to use the tool with particular contracts, Bhandarkar says. In recent years, Docusign has rolled out other AI features in moving to offer what it calls an intelligent agreement management (IAM) platform, where organizations can draft, store, and analyze contracts using AI and other tools, in addition to simply collecting signatures from other parties. More than 25,000 customers currently use the IAM platform, Bhandarkar adds. And additional AI offerings aim to make the process of drafting contracts that much faster. Docusigns AI is gaining the ability to automatically detect areas on imported documents such as PDFs that should be turned into digitally fillable fields, making it that much quicker to turn draft agreements into interactive versions without manually dragging and dropping fields, Bhandarkar says. Document creators will naturally be able to preview and edit fields before sending documents out for signature, and field suggestions will be available in all Docusign plans. The companys AI is also gaining the ability to validate email addresses and phone numbers where agreements are sent for signature, in order to reduce cases where documents are sent to the wrong destination. That feature, which will be available in Docusign Business and IAM plans, relies on a mix of internal data from peoples past interactions with Docusign and external data sources, Bhandarkar says. Bhandarkar says Docusign will be tracking metrics like whether users of AI summaries review and sign documents more quickly and to what extent contract creators retain or replace AI-generated fields, which should help the company continue to refine the AI.
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trump will travel to Michigan on Tuesday to promote his efforts to boost U.S. manufacturing, trying to counter fears about a weakening job market and worries that still-rising prices are taking a toll on Americans’ pocketbooks.The day trip will include a tour of a Ford factory in Dearborn that makes F-150 pickups, the bestselling domestic vehicle in the U.S. The Republican president is also set to address the Detroit Economic Club at the MotorCity Casino.November’s off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere showed a shift away from Republicans as public concerns about kitchen table issues persist. In their wake, the White House said Trump would put a greater emphasis on talking directly to the public about his economic policies after doing relatively few events around the country earlier in his term.The president has suggested that jitters about affordability are a “hoax” unnecessarily stirred by Democrats. Still, though he’s imposed steep tariffs on U.S. trading partners around the world, Trump has reduced some of them when it comes to making cars including extending import levies on foreign-made auto parts until 2030.Ford announced last month that it was scrapping plans to make an electric F-150, despite pouring billions of dollars into broader electrification, after the Trump administration slashed targets to have half of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030, eliminated EV tax credits and proposed weakening the emissions and gas mileage rules.Trump’s Michigan swing follows economy-focused speeches he gave last month in Pennsylvania where his gripes about immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation and North Carolina, where he insisted his tariffs have spurred the economy, despite residents noting the squeeze of higher prices.Trump carried Michigan in 2016 and 2024, after it swung Democratic and backed Joe Biden in 2020. He marked his first 100 days in office with a rally-style April speech outside Detroit, where he focused more on past campaign grudges than his administration’s economic or policy plans.During that visit nearly nine months ago, Trump also spoke at Selfridge Air National Guard Base and announced a new fighter jet mission, allaying fears that the base could close. It represented a win for Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the two even shared a hug.This time, Democrats have panned the president’s trip, singling out national Republicans’ opposition to extending health care subsidies and recalling a moment in October 2024 when Trump suggested that Democrats’ retaining the White House would mean “our whole country will end up being like Detroit.”“You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” Trump said during a campaign stop back then.Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said that “after spending months claiming that affordability was a ‘hoax’ and creating a health care crisis for Michiganders, Donald Trump is now coming to Detroit a city he hates to tout his billionaire-first agenda while working families suffer.”“Michiganders are feeling the effects of Trump’s economy every day,” Hertel said in a statement. Will Weissert and Corey Williams, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
In the summer of 2024, Squarespaces chief marketing officer, Kinjil Mathur, attracted criticism when she told Gen Z job seekers that they, like her, should be willing to do anything to land their first job. I was willing to work for free, I was willing to work any hours they neededeven on evenings and weekends, Kinjil told Fortune. You really have to just be willing to do anything, any hours, any pay, any type of job. The online backlash to Kinjils statement was immediate and brutal, forcing her to walk those comments back. I shared my own college internship experiences, and my words were misrepresented as career advice for a whole generation, Kinjil later said in a statement. The episode demonstrates a growing clash of values between the various generations in todays workplace. While some still take pride in sacrificing their well-being to demonstrate their commitment, othersprimarily younger workerssee things differently. I think they have more of an attitude of work-to-live as opposed to live-to-work that many of us grew up with, said Ravin Jesuthasan, the global leader for transformation services at the consulting giant Mercer, on stage in Davos in 2024. This is particularly true in the West. They have seen the legacy of all these broken promises. In the old days and in many parts of the West, they would promise you if you worked for 30 years, youd have this defined benefit pension, youd have retiree medical care, etc. None of that exists today. One of the many points of differentiation between todays young people and older workers is their perception of stress. Historically, Western workplace cultures equated stress with importance. If you were stressed, it often meant your job was more demanding and thus more important, encouraging some to complain about stress as a way to subtly communicate their value. Rather than seeing stress braggingor talking about being overworked with a sense of prideas a badge of honor, however, young people are more likely to interpret it as indicative of poor time management at best and an unhealthy relationship with work at worst. According to a 2024 study by researchers at the University of Georgia, those who brag the most about being stressed are now perceived more negatively by their peers. In fact, the research suggests those who stress brag are perceived as less capable, not more. After generations of equating time with effectiveness and busyness with importance, Gen Z has come to view the value of their time through a different lens. Its not just that Gen Z grew up in an era when many of the traditional promises of work and loyalty had long since been broken, when individual time commitments had been largely divorced from actual results. Those born in the late 1990s through the early 2010s have also already lived through a once-in-a-century economic crisis, endured a once-in-a-century pandemic, and are regularly bombarded by what were formerly considered once-in-a-century extreme weather events. This generation, which is just entering the workforce, spent their childhoods hearing their parents panic over financial challenges during the 2008 economic crisis, had their brains shaped by an unregulated social media machine that has proven detrimental to their mental health, lost some of their formative years to pandemic restrictions and lockdowns, and continues to face a barrage of new challenges almost daily. More so than any generation before them, this group of young people has developed an appreciation for proper time management, mental health, and well-being. Their well-documented emphasis on meaning and joy has come to replace past generations keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, competitive pursuit of material wealth. People used to say that money cant buy happiness, but the most anxious and depressed generation in modern history has internalized that sentiment. Countless studies show that when it comes to their priorities in lifeand at workGen Zers seek a greater balance between economic and emotional stability, prizing quality time over financial excess. According to a 2023 survey by Intuit, three-quarters of Gen Zers say they would rather have a better quality of life than more money in the bank, and 66% say they are only interested in earning money as a way to support their personal interests. Part of the motivation, the study suggests, is that social comparison has evolved from homes, cars, and other material markers of wealth to social media posts. In fact, 33% Gen Z members said they compare themselves to people they see on social media, versus 14% of the general population, and 70% say they feel as if theyre falling behind those they see online, compared with 50% of other generations. In Deloittes 2024 survey of millennials and Gen Zers, the respondents ranked work-life balance as their top priority when choosing an employer, followed by flexible hours and reduced workweeksall of which outranked salary. In short, this is the perfect generation to champion a shorter workweek. Not only does the reduced schedule offer more leisure time, which this generation prizes over compensation, but it has also been proven to reduce stress, anxiety, burnout, and depression. Furthermore, the four-day workweek represents an opportunity to address some of their greatest collective challenges, like improving family and community ties in the digital age, improving gender equity, and addressing climate change. Finally, the four-day workweek offers this generation more time to engage in causes that are meaningful to them, a primary motivator for this generation, according to research. Gen Z is the most enthusiastic generation about the concept of a four-day workweek and the most convinced of not just its feasibility but also its inevitability. In a 2024 survey of Gen Z students and professionals in the United States age 18 to 27, 80% said the four-day week should be standard, up from 76% the previous year. The same study also found that most young people were already utilizing new AI technologies to get more done in less time, with 72% saying they felt comfortable using generative AI regularly. In fact, 72% of Gen Z AI users said they save between 1 and 10 hours of schoolwork per week by leveraging the technology, and 14% have reduced their work time by more than 10 hours. Young people are so keen on a shorter workweek that theyre even willing to forgo other traditional workplace perks. In a 2023 survey by Bankrate, 92% of Gen Z and millennial respondents said they would sacrifice other common benefits in exchange for a four-day workweek, compared with 89% of Gen Xers and 80% of baby boomers.The most common workplace perks and norms that respondents of all generations would sacrifice for one less workday is the eight-hour day, with 54% saying they would work longer hours during the remaining four days. The second-most-popular trade-off was changing industries, jobs, or companies, with 37% saying they would leave their current role for a shorter schedule. According to a 2023 survey of 12,000 workers in the United Kingdom by Hays, 62% would prefer to work a four-day workweek in the office rather than a traditional five-day hybrid schedule. In its 2025 annual review, global HR firm Randstad, which has been asking thousands of workers around the world about work preferences since 2004, found that they ranked work-life balance ahead of pay for the first time. In the companys global survey of 26,000 workers, 83% put it at the very top of their priority list, nd this preference was even stronger among Gen Z workers. Even if other generations are slow to take up the cause, there is good reason to believe the four-day workweek is inevitablebecause it will be so highly valued by a generation of future leaders. Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Adapted from Do More in Four: Why Its Time for a Shorter Workweek by Joe OConnor and Jared Lindzon. Copyright 2026 Joe OConnor and Jared Lindzon. All rights reserved.
Category:
E-Commerce
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