Round 0: check the LOI against the first draft
Before the first draft leaves, compare it with the signed letter of intent. Ask the tool to list every term in the LOI (rent, term, options, tenant improvement allowance, exclusives) and show where each appears in the draft. A drafting tool that builds from deal terms, such as LeasePilot by its own description, narrows this step. With a general assistant, run the comparison yourself and keep the output.
Human check: a leasing professional confirms the economic terms in the draft match the LOI.
Round 1: read the tenant's markup
The tenant's counsel returns a Word file with tracked changes. Ask the tool for a change list, not a rewrite:
- Every change, in order, with the clause number.
- Each tagged as economic, risk allocation (indemnity, insurance, default) or housekeeping.
- A flag on any change the tenant made outside tracked changes. Compare the clean text yourself if the tool can't.
Human check: spot-check five changes against the Word file. A list that misses a change is worse than no list.
Round 2: draft the response from your playbook
For each change, the response should come from a position you wrote down in advance: accept, counter with fallback, reject. The playbook template shows the format. Tools that work in Word, such as Gavel Exec or Spellbook, apply a playbook to a draft. Specialized CRE tools such as Orbital say they produce landlord-favorable redlines from a counterparty's markup.
If you want to know what the same tenant asked for last time, that's a record problem. Acrebase describes a counterparty profile built from the other side's own documents across your deals. That is the vendor's description; ask for it on your data.
Human check: you accept or reject each proposed change in Word, one by one, and edit the cover email yourself.
Round 3 and beyond: keep the thread
Lease negotiations run several rounds. Track who is waiting on whom, and what was conceded. A spreadsheet works for a few deals. At volume, a workspace that threads each negotiation into rounds is the point of products like Acrebase's Negotiations Workspace.
Before signature: compare executed against agreed
Run a full comparison of the execution version against the last agreed draft. This is the step where a stray tracked change from an earlier round surfaces. Use Word's compare, and use an AI summary only as a second look.
Where this goes wrong
- Skipping the change list. Asking for a "better version" hides what changed.
- Trusting "market" without a source. A statement that a term is market should name its source. Acrebase's site says its estimates are always labeled as modeled; ask any vendor for the same.
- Confidential material in a tool that isn't approved. Check the security questionnaire first.
- Treating the tool's list as the record. The signed document and the Word file are the record.
Sources
- Acrebase, company site (pages read October 21, 2026) (Vendor claims; product, pricing and company pages)
- Orbital, AI for commercial real estate leasing (Vendor claims)
- LeasePilot, lease drafting software and pricing (Vendor claims)
- Gavel Exec, real estate law (Vendor claims)
Questions and answers
Can AI redline a commercial lease?
Yes, in the sense that several tools read a markup and propose tracked changes. Orbital, Gavel Exec, LeasePilot and Acrebase each describe a version of this on their own sites. Quality depends on your lease and your playbook, so test on a lease whose outcome you know.
How do I compare a lease to the LOI with AI?
List each LOI term, then ask the tool where each appears in the draft and what differs. We didn't find a dedicated LOI-versus-lease checker on Gavel's site; Orbital says it drafts LOIs and leases from agreed terms. A person confirms the economic terms either way.
Should AI send the response to the tenant?
No. Keep a person between the tool and the counterparty. Accept each tracked change, edit the cover note and send it yourself.
Is it safe to upload a lease to an AI tool?
Only after you've checked the vendor's data processing terms, model providers and retention. Acrebase says it has data processing agreements with its AI providers, with a custom DPA on enterprise plans. Ask for the document and read it.
What should I do with a tenant's non-standard clause the tool doesn't recognize?
Treat it as a human decision. Write the position down in your playbook afterward so the next lease starts with it.
Operational information, not legal advice. Tool descriptions are each vendor's own claims, read October 21, 2026; we did not test any product.