AI Playbook

NotebookLM for
Contract Review

Stop reading 40-page vendor contracts cover to cover. Upload the document, ask the right question, and get a cited answer straight from the source — in under 5 minutes.

Grounded answers — NotebookLM only pulls from your document

What These Prompts Do

A vendor contract lands in your inbox before a negotiation call. Reading it fully takes hours — and there's no guarantee you catch the clause that matters. These prompts tell NotebookLM exactly what to find, so you walk into every meeting knowing the clauses that matter most — before any negotiation, board review, or signing decision.

Upload your contract PDF to notebooklm.google.com, paste any prompt below, and get a cited answer from the document itself.

  • Termination conditions
  • Payment schedule & traps
  • SLA penalties
  • Liability exposure
  • Obligations map
  • Red flag clauses

Why NotebookLM — not ChatGPT or Claude?

NotebookLM is grounded entirely in the document you upload. It cannot pull from the internet or make things up about your contract. Every answer comes with an exact citation. That makes it the right tool for legal and commercial documents where accuracy is non-negotiable.


The 6 Prompts

1

Termination Clauses

Risk

Missing a termination fee clause has cost procurement teams millions. This tells you exactly what it costs to exit — and under what conditions.

Prompt
What are the termination clauses in this contract? Who can terminate, under what conditions, how much notice is required, and is there a financial penalty for early termination?

Exact termination conditions, notice periods, and cost to exit

Example answer you'll get
  • Either party may terminate with 90 days written notice
  • Buyer terminating for convenience owes a 10% fee on remaining contract value
  • Immediate termination allowed for material breach, insolvency, or fraud
  • Vendor must deliver all data within 10 business days of termination
2

Payment Schedule & Hidden Costs

Financial

Advance payments, retention, late interest, and annual price escalation are the four traps buried in most vendor contracts.

Prompt
What is the full payment schedule in this contract? Include advance payments, milestones, retention amounts, late payment penalties, and any price escalation terms.

Complete payment picture before you sign

Example answer you'll get
  • 30% advance on signing, 40% on delivery, 20% after maintenance, 10% retention after 12 months
  • Late payment interest: 1.5% per month after 30 days
  • Vendor can suspend services after 45 days of non-payment
  • Price can increase up to 5% annually from Year 2
3

SLA & Penalty Structure

Operations

SLA clauses look strong until you calculate the penalty cap. Most procurement teams never do this math before signing.

Prompt
What are the service level commitments in this contract? List the response times, resolution times, and what financial penalties apply if the vendor misses them. Is there a cap on total SLA penalties?

SLA teeth — what you can actually claim if they fail

Example answer you'll get
  • Critical failures: 4-hour response, 24-hour resolution
  • SLA breach penalty: PKR 25,000 per incident per business day
  • Total SLA credits capped at 10% of annual contract value
4

Liability & Risk Exposure

Legal

Liability caps and excluded damages define what you can actually recover when something goes seriously wrong.

Prompt
What is the liability cap in this contract and what damages are excluded? Does either party indemnify the other, and under what circumstances?

Your actual recovery ceiling if the vendor fails badly

Example answer you'll get
  • Liability capped at fees paid in the 12 months before the claim
  • Consequential damages excluded — including lost profits and data loss
  • Mutual indemnification for breach, negligence, and IP infringement
5

Obligations Map

Compliance

Who is responsible for what? A clear obligations map is what your team needs to avoid post-signing disputes.

Prompt
List all obligations of the Vendor separately from all obligations of the Buyer. Include deadlines or timeframes attached to each obligation.

A clean who-does-what list to share with your team

6

Red Flag Scan

Negotiation

Use this before any negotiation call. It surfaces the clauses that favor the other side — so you know exactly what to push back on.

Prompt
Which clauses in this contract are unusual or one-sided? Identify anything that disproportionately favors the Vendor — including automatic renewals, exclusivity restrictions, or uncapped obligations on the Buyer.

Your negotiation shortlist before the call

💡

Follow-up prompt: After getting the red flags, ask — "Which section number contains that clause?" NotebookLM will cite the exact paragraph so you can reference it in the meeting.


How to Use These Prompts

  • 1

    Open NotebookLM

    Go to notebooklm.google.com and create a new notebook.

  • 2

    Upload your contract

    Click "Add Source" and upload the vendor contract as a PDF. NotebookLM will process it in under a minute.

  • 3

    Copy a prompt and send it

    Click "Copy Prompt" on any card above, paste it into the NotebookLM chat, and hit send.

  • 4

    Check the citations

    Every answer will show which part of your document it pulled from. Click the citation to verify the exact clause before your meeting.

AI Playbook

More Prompts Coming Soon

We add new prompt collections every week — covering procurement, marketing, hiring, operations, and more.

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