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Contract Signals Report™

- Insights from 2025 -

The NDA Was Never Designed for AI.

How AI Disclosure and Governance Are Reshaping Early-Stage Contracting.

New research from TermScout's Certify™ platform reveals how organizations are increasingly using NDAs to surface AI risk, vendor transparency concerns, and governance expectations before formal diligence begins.

The Contract Signals Report™ analyzes thousands of real-world agreements reviewed through TermScout’s Certify™ platform to reveal how AI governance language is reshaping NDAs, procurement workflows, vendor transparency, and early-stage contracting behavior.

The 2026 Contract Trust Report Book Cover (7)
38%

of enterprise NDAs reviewed in Q1 2026 contained at least one AI-related provision

240%

increase in AI disclosure obligations year-over-year

27%

of technology-sector NDAs included "no model training" language

Why This Matters

Organizations increasingly want answers to questions that traditional NDAs were never designed to address: 

• Are you using AI?

• What happens to data after processing?

• Which systems are involved?

• Can disclosed information train models?

• Who has downstream access?

• What audit rights exist regarding AI usage?

The result is a growing shift in how NDAs are drafted, negotiated, and used during early-stage vendor evaluation.

What you’ll find inside:

 Why AI governance is appearing inside agreements

  • Why Al-related provisions are appearing before procurement, security review, and technical diligence even begin.

 Why NDAs are becoming overloaded

  • How confidentiality agreements are being stretched to govern model training, Al subprocessors, retention, disclosure, and operational Al controls.

 What "no model training" clauses reveal

  • Why these provisions often reflect deeper anxiety around irreversible data ingestion, visibility, and downstream control.

 Which industries are leading the shift toward AI governance

  • See why healthcare technology, financial services,
    enterprise SaaS, and other trust-sensitive sectors
    are leading the shift.

 Why organizations are creating new disclosure mechanisms

  • How Al disclosure exhibits, governance riders, transparency schedules, and operational questionnaires may become the next standard.

See how real-world contract language is evolving in response to AI.

Based on thousands of agreements reviewed through the TermScout Certify™ platform.

38% of Enterprise NDAs Now Contain AI Governance Language.

Organizations are increasingly using confidentiality agreements to ask questions that have nothing to do with confidentiality:

  • Are you using AI?
  • Which AI systems?
  • Can our data train models?
  • Who has downstream access?

According to our latest research, 38% of enterprise NDAs now contain AI-related provisions.

The NDA is evolving into something bigger: an early trust and governance checkpoint.

Our new Contract Signals Report™ explores what these changes reveal about AI, trust, and the future of contracting.

The 2026 Contract Trust Report V2

Explore More Contract Intelligence Research

Looking for broader contract market trends?
Read the 2026 Contract Trust Report™.

The Contract Signals Report™ explores how Al governance
is shaping NDAs and early-stage trust evaluation.

For a broader analysis of the contract terms that drive risk,
negotiation friction, and commercial trust, read the
2026 Contract Trust Report™

You will find here:

 Discover which contract terms create the most negotiation friction

     See how trust varies across vendors and industries

Learn the provisions most associated with faster deal cycles

 Explore emerging trends in commercial risk allocation

 Benchmark against what best-in-class agreements look like today
Contract trust report
Read the 2026 Contract Trust Report™ →

About Contract Signals Report™

Contract Signals Report™ is TermScout's recurring market intelligence series examining emerging behavior patterns across real-world contracts.

Using aggregated and anonymized data reviewed through the Certify™ platform, each report identifies new governance trends, explains what they signal operationally, and explores where contracting practices are heading next.