How AI will shape future contractual disputes
The widespread adoption of AI will not bring about a revolution in Spanish contract law. What will change is the reality that judges or arbitrators will have to adjudicate: facts influenced by AI, new forms of evidence, and standards of diligence yet to be defined.
It is now commonplace for legal departments and business units alike to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to draft and perform complex contracts, review substantial volumes of information in the management of their contractual portfolio, or prepare negotiation strategies. In the vast majority of cases, the final decision remains a human one, but the path leading to that outcome is no longer entirely so. In a forthcoming court dispute or arbitration proceeding, a tribunal might ask your company: why did you not use AI to identify a contractual risk or to prevent a breach? Or alternatively: why did you rely on the outputs generated by AI at the time of contract formation or performance?
This shift may seem inconsequential for a body of contract law that in Spain has remained robust over time and has absorbed more than a century of economic and technological transformations without altering its essential doctrines. Indeed, AI is unlikely to bring about imminent regulatory upheaval in Spain in the contractual sphere, beyond existing modernisation proposals and the specialised legislation emerging around the use and development of AI (in Europe, spearheaded by the Artificial Intelligence Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689).
Yet the use of AI may acquire enormous significance and shape future contractual disputes, even where judges or arbitrators apply the same contract law. The facts they will have to assess will be different, influenced by the intervention of AI, and companies would be well advised to have considered –and prepared for– a future in which this becomes the norm.
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