Contracting in the Age of AI: Bridging the Gap Between Promise and Practice

We had the opportunity to interview Gaurav Gupta, Nokia’s Global Head of Contract Operations & Digitalization and a confirmed speaker for Future Contracts London on 10 December 2025.

In his role, Gaurav oversees Nokia’s global contracting operations and leads major digital transformation efforts within the Legal & Compliance function. He manages an international team of contract managers, CLM/AI specialists, and program managers, driving a full re-engineering of the sales contracting process through an AI-enabled CLM system integrated with Salesforce CRM.

In our conversation, Gaurav shared practical insights on the realities of legal tech adoption - from gaps between promise and implementation, to cultural barriers, evolving sales-legal collaboration, and the governance challenges emerging in digital contracting.

He will expand on these themes at Future Contracts London during the panel discussion “Scaling Smart: Building a Future-Ready Contracting Function,” alongside experts from Salesforce, Quantessence, and SpotDraft.

Enjoy the interview!

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Where do you see the biggest gaps between the promise of legal tech and its real-world implementation?

I do agree that legal tech promotes standardization and also helps in productivity gain. Legal tech tools , however, work best in environments where work is predictable and repeatable. But commercial contracts - especially in telecoms - are rarely standardised. They involve:

• complex negotiation dynamics

• highly bespoke terms depending on client, industry, and risk allocation

• exceptions, carve-outs, and scenario-specific provisions

Gap therefore is that tools designed for uniform workflows struggle to handle the variability and complexity of real contracts, requiring significant human intervention and limiting automation gains.

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In your experience, what cultural or organisational barriers most often slow down innovation in contracting environments?

There is usually a lot of hesitation to trust technology in critical workflows, excessive verification steps and bias toward existing methods over unfamiliar tools. Additionally, legal and contracting teams are often overloaded and there is not enough incentive for them to learn new technology. 

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How do you think digital contracting tools will change the relationship between Contracting /legal and sales teams?

Digital contracting - especially with the rise of agentic AI - will fundamentally reshape how Sales and Legal interact. The relationship will become more strategic, less transactional, and far more collaborative than it is today.

With agentic AI, Sales can ask questions, explore commercial terms, check deviations, validate deal structures and run risk-checking scenarios before sending anything to Legal.

Legal & Contracting teams can contribute more strategically instead of being overwhelmed with routine tasks.

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As contracts become increasingly digital and data-driven, what new governance challenges do you foresee companies needing to address to maintain accuracy, consistency, and compliance?

As organisations shift toward digital, automated, and data-driven contracting, several new governance challenges are emerging. 

Confidentiality & Data Security of contract data is arguably the most critical challenge.

Additionally, Digital contracting increasingly spans multiple platforms (CLMs, ERPs, CRMs, procurement systems, AI assistants). Key challenges include:

• Ensuring consistent definitions, clause libraries, and templates

• Keeping versions aligned across platforms

• Managing duplication and fragmentation of contract data

Without tight governance, organisations risk misalignment between the legal position and operational execution.

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What do you aim for the audience to learn from hearing you at Future Contracts London?

At Future Contracts London, I aim to share practical, real-world lessons from my CLM and legal-tech implementation journey - highlighting what truly drives success, where projects commonly go wrong, and how to navigate the complexities of data, process design, and organisational change. My goal is for the audience to gain a clear understanding of how to avoid the typical pitfalls, how to balance automation with sound legal judgement, and how digital contracting can deliver genuine business value when approached with the right governance, stakeholder engagement, and long-term mindset.