Docusign's CEO on the dangers of trusting AI to read, and write, your contracts

"I always assumed I would never find out, because most enterprise software CEOs do not like being on Decoder. That's because most enterprise software is bad, and they often don't actually use their own products, which means they have a hard time answering my questions. So I was pretty happy when Allan agreed to come on - and then told me he had actually used Docusign himself just that morning."

"Allan and I spent a long time talking about the idea that Docusign should summarize contracts for people before they sign them and who is responsible if the AI gets that interpretation wrong. We also spent a while talking about how Docusign's customers actually generate the kinds of documents that get signed and how automating that process with AI does and does not work."

"You know Docusign; it's the platform where you sign things online. It turns out 7,000 people work there, which is one of those facts you see flying around sometimes that's always felt like perfect Decoder bait. What are all those people doing? And what kind of product roadmap does a company like Docusign even need? I always assumed I would never find out, because most enterprise software CEOs do not like being on Decoder."

Allan Thygesen leads DocuSign and has been CEO for three years after joining from Google. DocuSign employs about 7,000 people to operate an e-signature platform and expand into contract lifecycle management and document automation. The platform aims to summarize contracts with AI, handle responsibility for AI interpretations, and automate generation of transactional documents. Many customer document processes resemble advanced mail merge rather than creative drafting. Product roadmap priorities include improving enterprise software quality, increasing platform integration, and applying AI where it reliably augments signing and document workflows without misattributing responsibility. Organizational structure balances engineering, customer success, and product teams to support scale.

Read at The Verge