Contract Lifecycle Management Heats Up: Inside the Past, Present and AI-Powered Future

April 17, 2026 / Monica Zent
Contract Lifecycle Management

Is Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) a Sleepy Category of Legal Tech or waking back up?

When Ironclad announced that it had crossed $200 million in annual recurring revenue in February, Business Insider heralded the moment with a headline that stated the Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) sector “is showing new signs of life.”

BI noted that Ironclad isn’t just competing with other CLM vendors such as Agiloft and Sirion, but also a “swarm of startups” built on LLMs, while even the foundational models move closer to the legal space.

Contracting is not going away. What’s different is how the work gets done. On that note, a new crop of AI-infused contracts intelligence tools are seeking to disrupt the CLM category or, perhaps, serve as an extension of it.

The latest Venture Legal feature story examines:

  • The basics. What is CLM and why it matters.
  • A brief history of CLM tools.
  • The rise of AI-infused CLM.
  • Recent investment activity in the space.
  • Putting CLM to work.

A timely event, “Turning Contract Chaos into Intelligence: A Candid Conversation,” and a new podcast interview!

Read the full story

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