RiskVantage AI has introduced a new artificial intelligence platform designed to change how businesses review contracts, negotiate legal terms and manage complex transactions. The Chicago-based company announced RiskVantage Negotiate on October 26, 2026, alongside its international showcase at the Dubai AI Festival 2026.
The platform targets an enterprise legal market that RiskVantage estimates spends approximately $75 billion annually on contract reviews, negotiations and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) legal work.
Rather than relying entirely on large language models to interpret legal risks, RiskVantage AI combines smaller, specialised AI models with a structured decision-making system. The company says this approach gives legal teams greater control over contract negotiations while keeping sensitive information within their own infrastructure.
Its launch comes as businesses face growing pressure to adopt AI without compromising data security, regulatory compliance or accountability.
RiskVantage AI Wants to Make Contract Negotiations More Transparent
Contract negotiations remain one of the more time-consuming responsibilities for corporate legal departments. Lawyers regularly examine agreements clause by clause, identify potential liabilities and negotiate changes before a deal can move forward.
RiskVantage AI believes much of that process can be automated without leaving critical legal decisions to unpredictable AI-generated responses.
Its new platform uses a neuro-symbolic AI architecture, combining language processing with a knowledge graph that follows an organisation’s established legal policies.
Instead of asking a general-purpose AI model to determine whether a contractual provision is acceptable, RiskVantage evaluates clauses against predefined rules. Legal teams can establish their preferred contractual terms, acceptable alternatives and conditions they will not negotiate beyond. The system then compares incoming agreements against those requirements.
Each flagged issue includes an explanation identifying the rule behind the decision.
That distinction matters. A legal team reviewing a high-value agreement needs more than an AI-generated recommendation. It needs to understand why a particular clause creates a problem and whether the proposed changes align with company policy.
Smaller AI Models Offer an Alternative to Expensive Legal AI Systems
One of RiskVantage AI’s more unusual decisions is its reliance on smaller language models rather than the largest AI systems available.
The company uses domain-adapted models, including a 9-billion-parameter language model, to identify legal concepts, extract information and generate contractual language.
According to RiskVantage, its specialised model achieved approximately 97% accuracy in internal testing involving legal concept detection and extraction.
The company claims the results were comparable to those of larger frontier AI models. However, the benchmark findings are company-reported and have not been independently verified.
Smaller models also offer potential financial advantages. They generally require fewer computing resources, making them more practical for organisations processing large volumes of contracts.
RiskVantage has designed its platform to operate within private cloud environments or on-premises infrastructure.
For companies handling confidential transactions, this could be particularly attractive. Financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare providers and defence organisations often face strict requirements concerning where sensitive information can be processed and stored.
Keeping legal AI systems within an organisation’s controlled environment may help address some of those concerns.
AI Contract Negotiation Platform Covers the Entire Legal Workflow
RiskVantage Negotiate is designed to handle more than the initial review of a contract. The platform supports the negotiation process from document intake and risk assessment to proposed revisions, counterparty communication and final signature.
When a new agreement enters the system, RiskVantage evaluates the transaction’s context, including its commercial value and whether sensitive information is involved.
It then checks contractual provisions against the company’s approved legal playbook and generates reports explaining any deviations.
The platform can also produce redlined documents with tracked changes, allowing legal teams to review suggested amendments before sharing them with counterparties.
Microsoft Word compatibility is built into the browser-based experience, while a dedicated counterparty portal supports the exchange of contract drafts.
RiskVantage also allows legal teams to involve internal specialists when agreements raise questions involving cybersecurity, privacy, finance or other technical areas.
An audit trail records decisions throughout the negotiation process.
The company says its platform can integrate with enterprise resource planning systems, contract lifecycle management software, electronic signature services and workplace communication tools.
RiskVantage currently supports agreements including non-disclosure agreements, master service agreements, software licences, SaaS contracts, statements of work and IT services contracts.
Internal Testing Shows a 60% Reduction in First-Draft Issues
RiskVantage AI reports that its platform reduced first-draft issues by 60% compared with manual contract review during internal testing.
The company has not publicly detailed the full testing methodology in its launch announcement, so the result should be treated as an internal performance claim rather than an independently established industry benchmark.
Still, the potential benefits are clear.
Contract negotiations frequently slow down when legal teams must repeatedly examine familiar provisions or reconcile differences between an agreement and internal policies.
A system capable of identifying those discrepancies early could reduce repetitive work and allow lawyers to concentrate on negotiations that require professional judgement.
RiskVantage also emphasises human oversight. Its risk configuration system can examine existing agreements, internal policies and standard operating procedures to suggest legal positions, but those positions remain unapproved until a person confirms them.
This approach reflects a growing concern surrounding enterprise AI: automation is useful, but organisations still need clear responsibility for consequential decisions.
RiskVantage AI Expands Its Ambitions Into Mergers and Acquisitions
Contract negotiations are only the beginning of RiskVantage AI’s broader strategy.
The company is developing two additional products focused on mergers and acquisitions.
RiskVantage Diligence is intended to examine documents in transaction data rooms and assess them against an acquiring company’s requirements. This could help legal teams identify contractual risks during the due diligence process.
Another planned module, RiskVantage Integrate, will focus on aligning acquired contracts with the policies and contractual standards of a parent organisation.
Both products remain under development.
RiskVantage also disclosed that it filed a provisional patent in April 2025 covering aspects of its neuro-symbolic risk classification, ontology-based reasoning and automated contract redlining technology.
The expansion suggests the company wants to build a broader enterprise transaction platform rather than compete solely as a contract-review assistant.
Former Bristol Myers Squibb and Xometry Executives Lead the Company
RiskVantage AI was co-founded by Mark Afshar, its chief executive officer, and Emad Khazraee, its chief technology officer.
Afshar previously served as Lead AI/Tech Counsel at Bristol Myers Squibb, where he handled more than 2,000 technology transactions, according to the company.
Khazraee previously held the position of Vice President of AI at Xometry and has experience in artificial intelligence research, data science and technology development.
Their combined backgrounds in enterprise legal operations and AI engineering have influenced RiskVantage’s approach to automation.
Khazraee argues that legal risk assessment should rely on clearly defined rules wherever possible, rather than allowing a language model to independently determine an organisation’s acceptable level of risk.
The platform therefore separates language understanding from the underlying legal decision-making process.
Dubai AI Festival 2026 Provides an International Launch Platform
RiskVantage AI selected the Dubai AI Festival 2026, held October 26–27 at the Dubai World Trade Centre, to introduce its technology to an international audience.
Organised by Dubai AI Campus at the Dubai International Financial Centre, the festival brings together technology companies, investors, policymakers and enterprise leaders exploring commercial applications of artificial intelligence.
The event’s programme covers AI governance, enterprise transformation, infrastructure, investment and the growing adoption of intelligent systems across industries.
RiskVantage scheduled live demonstrations of its negotiation platform at booth S95.
Dubai’s growing role as a regional centre for AI development also makes the event a relevant venue for companies offering enterprise technologies designed around data sovereignty and regulatory requirements.
For RiskVantage, the festival offers an opportunity to introduce its legal AI technology to organisations seeking greater efficiency without surrendering control over confidential business information.
Explainable AI Could Become a Major Priority for Enterprise Legal Teams
RiskVantage AI’s launch highlights an important question facing the legal technology industry: how much authority should companies give AI when contractual decisions carry financial and regulatory consequences?
Large language models can process documents quickly and generate convincing legal language. But speed alone does not guarantee that their recommendations follow an organisation’s policies.
RiskVantage is betting that businesses will increasingly prefer systems capable of explaining their decisions, preserving audit records and operating within controlled environments.
The company’s internal performance claims suggest potential efficiency improvements, although broader customer deployments and independent testing will be needed to establish how consistently those results translate into real-world legal operations.
For now, RiskVantage Negotiate enters a competitive legal AI market with a distinct proposition: use AI to handle the language, but keep legal risk decisions tied to rules that people can inspect and control.
That could become an increasingly important distinction as enterprises move beyond AI experimentation and begin trusting automated systems with more consequential business processes.
Sources
- Markets Insider: RiskVantage AI Unveils Explainable, Sovereign AI for the $75 Billion Contract and Deal Legal Market at Dubai AI Festival
- GlobeNewswire: Official RiskVantage AI Announcement – October 26, 2026
- Dubai International Financial Centre: Dubai AI Festival 2026 to Accelerate Global AI Collaboration
- Dubai AI Festival: Official Event Website
- RiskVantage AI: Official Company Website
