LIJDLR

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN CONTRACT FORMATION: LEGAL IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMERCIAL TRANSACTIONS

Ms. Priyanka Arvind Khakhadia, Assistant Professor, KES’ Shri Jayantilal H. Patel Law College, Kandivali (India)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an increasingly significant instrument in modern commercial contracting. Businesses now deploy AI-enabled systems to analyse market data, communicate with customers, generate contractual terms, automate acceptance, manage procurement, and execute transactions with limited human intervention. These developments improve speed and efficiency, but they also challenge contract law, which traditionally assumes that consent, authority, intention, and responsibility can be attributed to legally recognised human or juristic persons. This paper examines the legal implications of AI-assisted contract formation in commercial transactions, with particular focus on consent, agency, authority, attribution, enforceability, and accountability. It adopts a doctrinal and comparative research methodology by analysing the Indian Contract Act, 1872, the Information Technology Act, 2000, and relevant legal developments in the United Kingdom and the United States. The paper considers whether AI systems should be treated as mere technological tools, electronic agents, or autonomous decision-making mechanisms whose actions must nevertheless be attributed to the persons or entities deploying them. The study finds that existing principles of contract law can accommodate many forms of automated contracting, particularly where AI operates within predefined parameters and remains subject to effective human oversight. However, highly autonomous and self-learning systems create uncertainty where outcomes are unexpected, erroneous, or beyond the immediate contemplation of the user. The paper concludes that India should adopt a technology-neutral but accountability-oriented framework that preserves the enforceability of AI-assisted contracts while clearly assigning responsibility to the human and corporate actors who design, deploy, control, and commercially benefit from AI systems.

📄 Type 🔍 Information
Research Paper LawFoyer International Journal of Doctrinal Legal Research (LIJDLR), Volume 4, Issue 3, Page 328–346.
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