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🚀 I. Getting Started

1. What is a playbook?

A playbook is a standardized guide for contract review that captures your company’s preferred positions, fallback terms, and negotiation considerations. Think of it as a structured checklist that GC AI applies consistently across contracts, flagging deviations, explaining why provisions matter, and suggesting approved redlines directly in Microsoft Word.

2. What is the difference between GC AI Playbooks and Easy Playbooks?

GC AI Playbooks are pre-built, ready-to-use playbooks created by GC AI for common contract types. Today, these include NDAs, DPAs, MSAs for SaaS, and MSAs for commercial use. They allow you to start reviewing documents immediately without creating or configuring a playbook yourself. Easy Playbooks are customer-created playbooks. They let you generate a playbook from your own templates, previously negotiated agreements, or imported playbooks, and can be used for virtually any contract type. Simply upload your documents and GC AI will create a playbook you can reuse for future reviews.

3. Do I need to have a Playbook to use the Playbooks feature?

No. We have four ready-to-use GC AI Playbooks you can apply to common document types (NDAs. DPAs, MSAs for SaaS and MSAs for commercial use). If you’d prefer to make a playbook from your template or your recently negotiated documents, you can also have GC AI create one that you can then use to review future contracts.

4. What types of contracts can Playbooks be used for?

GC AI Playbooks support four common agreements, NDAs, DPAs, MSAs for SaaS and MSAs for commercial use. In addition, using Easy Playbooks customers can create playbooks for virtually any contract type by importing your own playbooks, templates, or negotiated agreements.

5. Can I customize a GC AI Playbooks to my company’s positions?

Yes. You can copy any GC AI Playbook into your own workspace and customize it to reflect your company’s preferred positions, fallbacks, and guidance. All fields in the Playbook are fully editable, including individual checks, positions, fallback logic, and example language. GC AI offers classes, and a detailed user guide to help users quickly learn how to tailor Playbooks to their organization’s specific negotiation approach.

✏️ II. Creating a Playbook

6. Can I create a Playbook from my existing internal playbook or templates?

Yes. In addition to GC AI Playbooks, we offer Easy Playbooks. Using this, you can upload your existing playbook documents and/or contract templates, and GC AI will convert them into a structured Playbook. From there, you can review, edit, and refine each position, fallback, and guidance before using it in contract review.

7. How many documents should I upload when creating a Playbook from my own materials?

For best results, we recommend uploading no more than three to five documents when using Easy Playbooks. This gives GC AI enough context to accurately extract your positions without introducing unnecessary variation.

8. What format can I use for my Playbook?

Any format, so long as a human can understand it. What won’t work is if you upload just a list of your fallback positions since you can’t make a playbook unless you know what your preferred positions are. You can have specific language or general concepts in your playbooks. In general, GC AI will mark sections as complying with your playbook as long as the general concept complies, even if slightly different terms or language is used, unless you specifically include requirements that exact language is required.

9. Do I need exact clause language in my Playbook, or are examples sufficient?

Exact clause language is not required. GC AI primarily evaluates whether the substance of a provision aligns with your Playbook. Example language helps guide the AI, but it will not replace contract text wholesale unless you instruct it to require exact wording.

⚙️ III. How Playbooks Work

10. What are checks in a Playbook?

Checks are the specific provisions or aspects of a document GC AI will look for when reviewing against your playbook. Think of them as issues that you are telling GC AI to look for when reviewing the document. For example, if your playbook requires the governing law to be California, with your fallback being New York, the “check” is for governing law. In general, GC AI will mark sections as complying with your playbook as long as the general concept complies, even if slightly different terms or language is used, unless you specifically include requirements that exact language is required.

11. Can I include fallback positions in my Playbook?

Yes. Your playbook can include conditional language that’s implicated by certain contract language or context provided when running your playbook. When GC AI evaluates a contract, it will evaluate each check on the spectrum of how close the contract is to your preferred language. If the contract doesn’t have your preferred language but it does have fallback language you’ve deemed acceptable, it will evaluate it as acceptable, and categorize the check as either “Pass” or “Fallback”. GC AI can also understand and interpret contracts that have been marked up, and which contain track change redlines. When using Playbooks in advanced stages of negotiation, provide context of your deal stage when you run your playbook. This will allow GC AI to apply available fallback provisions when suggesting redlines in its playbook review.

12. Does GC AI work with marked-up contracts and track changes?

Yes. GC AI can review contracts that include tracked changes and redlines. When reviewing contracts in later stages of negotiation, you can also provide context about deal stage so GC AI applies fallback positions appropriately when suggesting redlines.

🎯 IV. Running a Playbook & Results

13. How do I run a Playbook against a contract in Microsoft Word?

Open your contract in Microsoft Word, launch the GC AI add-in, navigate to the Playbooks tab, select the Playbook you want to use, and click Run playbook. GC AI will analyze the document and generate results directly in Word.

14. What happens after I run a Playbook?

After a Playbook run, GC AI generates:
  • A summary highlighting key findings and action items
  • Categorized results for each check
  • Detailed analysis explaining why provisions were flagged
  • Suggested redlines where changes are needed

15. What do the Playbook result categories mean?

Each check that GC AI analyzes is categorized as one of the following:
  • Pass: The substance of the provision matches your preferred position.
  • Fallback: The provision is acceptable under certain conditions you’ve defined.
  • Flag: The provision conflicts with your playbook, is misaligned with your position, or is missing required information.

16. Does GC AI review for issues not addressed in my Playbook?

Yes. Once your playbook run has completed, a summary is generated which will include issues not addressed by your playbook. For example, in a review of a markup of your first party MSA, this summary may include that your customer has marked up the MSA to include wholly new sections that create risk for your organization. In addition, GC AI has “Smart Checks”, which are provisions detected in the document you are reviewing that aren’t covered by your playbook. They help identify unexpected clauses or counterparty additions. You can save a Smart Check to your playbook for future reviews, to build out your playbook over time based on issues you encounter during contract review.

17. Do Playbooks learn from my acceptance or rejection of suggested edits?

Not at this time. Suggested revisions are based on the specific language within your playbook.

18. Do the comments generated come from our specific playbook comments/language?

The comments are currently generated by GC AI, just like when you use GC AI for Word.

✨ V. Suggested Redlines & Interaction

19. How do suggested redlines work in Playbooks?

When GC AI identifies provisions that deviate from your Playbook, it suggests redlines directly in Word. You can apply them, copy them, edit them manually, regenerate them with AI, or dismiss them entirely.

20. Can I edit or regenerate a suggested redline before applying it?

Yes. You can manually edit suggested redlines or ask GC AI to generate a new alternative before applying changes to your document.

🔧 VI. Editing, Sharing & Governance

21. How do I edit and maintain my Playbooks over time?

All fields of your playbook are fully editable (including, adding or removing checks, changing positions or editing other relevant fields) on an ongoing basis following creation of your GC AI Playbook. You can edit via the web (Main Menu, Playbooks, then select the playbook to edit) or directly in GC AI for Word.

22. How does sharing Playbooks across my organization work?

Playbooks are shared manually by the creator or administrator, in either the web app (Main Menu, Playbooks, then select the playbook and three dot menu to share) or directly in GC AI for Word. You can grant access to specific individuals or make a Playbook available to all GC AI license holders at your organization. Sharing is not automatic.

23. Are my Playbook results saved if I close Word or exit the GC AI add-in?

Coming soon.