As of 13 August 2026, AI can explain a UK business contract in plain English.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the contract and any schedules, appendices or documents it incorporates, then save a complete copy with the page and clause numbering intact.
   2. Remove personal data, confidential information and commercially sensitive material that you are not authorised to share, while keeping wording that affects the contract's meaning.
   3. Write down your role, the deal's purpose, the agreed commercial points and any deadline or clause you already suspect is important.
   4. Paste the complete contract, the business context and the prompt into an AI tool, then ask it to process the whole document rather than selected clauses only.
   5. Compare every table entry, quotation, clause reference, date, payment obligation and deadline against the original contract and correct the summary where it does not match.
   6. Send the original contract, the AI summary and the list of flagged issues to a UK solicitor before signing if the contract has material value, unusual liability, unclear wording or serious consequences.

   Prompt

   Explain the UK business contract below in plain English for a non-lawyer. Do not give legal advice or state that a clause is enforceable unless the text clearly supports that conclusion. Keep the explanation separate from legal interpretation.
   
   First, identify the parties, contract purpose, start date, term, renewal process and governing law. Then create a table with these columns: clause reference, short heading, plain-English meaning, who must do what, deadline or trigger, financial consequence, and practical risk.
   
   Cover payment, performance obligations, warranties, limitation of liability, indemnities, intellectual property, confidentiality, data protection, termination, notice requirements, disputes, governing law and any unusual or one-sided provisions. Quote or closely paraphrase the relevant wording and give the exact clause reference for every important point. Do not invent missing facts. Mark anything unclear, internally inconsistent or dependent on another document as NEEDS CHECKING.
   
   End with:
   1. A list of actions and deadlines for [YOUR BUSINESS OR ROLE].
   2. Questions to ask the other party.
   3. A short list of issues a UK solicitor should review before signing.
   4. A plain statement of what this summary cannot establish.
   
   Contract:
   [PASTE CONTRACT HERE]
   
   Business context, if relevant:
   [DESCRIBE YOUR ROLE, THE DEAL, AND ANY SPECIFIC CONCERN]
   
   This is for understanding only and is not professional advice.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.