AI Clauses and Properties Overview – Ironclad

This article will provide an overview of AI clauses and custom AI clauses. This includes a list of best practices when managing clauses.

Clauses

A clause, or clause type (also called a provision), is a section, phrase, or paragraph in a legal document—such as a contract, deed, will, or constitution—that addresses a specific point. Clauses are typically 8 words or more and are written as one or more sentences. Ironclad uses AI to detects clauses in documents via AI Playbooks and Smart Import. There are two types of clauses:

Out-of-the-Box Ironclad AI Clauses: Ironclad provides 175 out-of-the-box AI clauses that are detected in AI Playbooks and Smart Import documents.
Custom AI Clauses: Create custom clauses and train Ironclad AI to better detect clauses using examples.

Refer to the table below for a description of each clause type:

Clause Type	Description
AI Custom Clauses	Ironclad AI Custom Clauses (also know as Custom AI or Custom AI clauses) are created by Ironclad users. Only company admins are able to view, edit and manage AI Custom Clauses You can train Ironclad AI clauses to improve their accuracy using examples. Ironclad AI clauses are detected in both Smart Import and AI Playbooks. Only administrators can access this functionality.
Ironclad AI Clause	Ironclad AI Clauses (also know as Ironclad out-of-the-box AI clauses) are preconfigured by Ironclad. Only administrators can view, edit and manage. You can train Ironclad AI clauses to improve their accuracy using examples. Ironclad AI clauses are detected in both Smart Import and AI Playbooks.

Best Practices

Here are a few recommendations to get you started with clauses:

Before you start using AI Playbooks and Smart Import, we recommend setting up AI clauses and custom AI clauses.
Review all Ironclad out-of-the-box clauses. Turn off any clauses you don’t need to be detected by AI Playbooks and Smart Import.
Add examples with a strong training impact to train clauses and improve detection. You can train both Ironclad out-of-the-box AI clauses and AI custom clauses by providing a few examples of clause text. You can start with 1-2 examples, adding and deleting examples at any point in time based on your business’ needs.
If you don’t see clauses that fit your needs under the Ironclad AI Clauses list, add AI custom clauses. In addition to the preconfigured clauses, Ironclad also features AI custom clauses that enable you to train and fine tune AI to better detect clauses in both AI Playbooks and Smart Import.

Properties

A property is a structured metadata field that stores key information about workflows and records. Properties help you categorize, search, and report on contract data efficiently. Ironclad offers several types of properties:

Default Properties: Ironclad AI automatically detects 19 built-in properties once are contract is fully executed.
- You can customize these settings to improve detection accuracy for your organization. For example, if your team uses the Delivery Date as the Agreement Date, you can either:
  - Add additional clause examples and detection logic while keeping the original property name and description, or
  - Provide a new property name and description to enable additional detection logic (similar to how custom clauses work).
- These customizations don’t change the original Data Manager property configuration but add another layer of detection. Out-of-the-box detection remains available and continues to function as expected.
Custom Properties: Create additional properties to capture workflow-specific details, such as region-specific terms or custom identifiers, through the Launch Form.
Custom AI Properties: Train AI to automatically extract unique contract details, enabling more precise and automated data capture. You can train Ironclad AI properties to improve their accuracy using examples.

Data Manager and Workflow Designer

You can manage your properties in Data Manager and Workflow Designer. Any changes you make to properties either from Data Manager or from Workflow Designer will be automatically applied to the relevant workflow configurations within Ironclad.

The following functionality will be live on July 10th. To learn more about the features included in our July release, refer to What's New in Ironclad: July 2025.

Filter Properties in Data Manager

You can filter your properties by AI configuration type in Data Manager. This is helpful when configuring your custom AI properties.

Learn More

If you want to learn more about properties and how to manage them, check out the following resources: