**Sydney**: Hipages Group is piloting AI technologies to streamline contract reviews and automate the approval process for tradie licenses. Legal counsel Lucy Thompson highlights the benefits of AI in enhancing operational efficiency and improving the onboarding experience for tradespeople on their platform.
hipages Group, an online marketplace connecting tradies with homeowners, is currently piloting the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to assist its legal team with various applications, including contract reviews, summarisation, and automating the approval of tradie licenses. This initiative was discussed by Lucy Thompson, the legal counsel and assistant company secretary of hipages, during a Salesforce event in Sydney.
The platform allows homeowners to post jobs and receive quotes from qualified tradespeople, simplifying the process of finding and hiring service professionals. Speaking to iTnews, Thompson highlighted that the legal team’s use of AI has significantly streamlined the review process for contracts. The technology can identify particularly aggressive clauses and point out any missing elements, thereby enhancing the team’s efficiency. Additionally, AI is sometimes used to generate draft contractual clauses, which can then be refined through further collaboration within the team. “As soon as you have something on a piece of paper, it’s so much easier to work with,” Thompson stated, illustrating the benefits of this innovation.
In terms of future developments, hipages is exploring the possibility of AI agents facilitating the onboarding process for tradespeople looking to join the platform. Thompson mentioned that the company is currently running a pilot project to evaluate whether AI can effectively automate the trade license approval and verification process. If successful, this advancement could expedite the onboarding of tradespeople, while simultaneously allowing hipages staff to focus on other important tasks. “The pilot is going really well,” Thompson said, adding that if the accuracy of the system improves, it has the potential to save significant time for the team.
This exploration of AI capabilities builds on hipages’ existing efforts to improve contract management. The legal team initiated the deployment of DocuSign’s contract lifecycle management (CLM) software to address issues related to centralised contract storage and the monitoring of contract renewals with external vendors. Thompson noted that, initially, the team’s focus was solely on establishing a contract repository, but the functionality of the software soon revealed extensive capabilities beyond their initial expectations.
After successfully implementing DocuSign as a repository, the legal team began utilising additional features, including workflow automation and report-building, greatly enhancing their operational efficiency. “As lawyers, it doesn’t always work, having everything in the platform, especially [for] external vendor or contract negotiation, so that process with DocuSign is really seamless,” Thompson remarked, indicating that the software has significantly improved the legal processes within the organisation.
Today, hipages predominantly employs templates for common documents such as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), master services agreements (MSAs), and sales contracts. This shift has reduced the time required for document preparation and review. “People can just click a few buttons, and send out a document for signature,” Thompson remarked, highlighting the increased efficiency that the integration of these tools has brought to the legal team’s operations.
Source: Noah Wire Services
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