Agreement drift

The terms changed. Nobody negotiated.

It rarely arrives as a demand. It arrives as a reminder — a number restated in passing, in the past tense, as though it were always that way. By the time it reaches an invoice it has been said three times and challenged none.

Agreement drift is when the description of a deal changes while the deal itself does not — a term, a date or a figure restated as though it had always been that.

Not the same as a renegotiation. A renegotiation is proposed, discussed and agreed to. Drift arrives already in the past tense, as a reminder of a conversation that never happened — which is what makes it so hard to object to without seeming difficult.

TaskFieldAcme Corp · agreement riskExample workspace · illustrative data

Alex Rivera9:14 AM

Re: Q3 scope + invoicing“As we discussed, Net-60 payment terms apply going forward.”

This claim doesn't match your agreement

Your record says Net-30 in three places. Their email says Net-60, and attributes it to a conversation.

Agreement

What this is based on

Signed SOW · §4.2Net-30 from date of invoice.

Alex Rivera · Mar 14“Net-30 works on our side.”

Call notes · Mar 14Terms confirmed, no exception discussed.

Autopilot frozen on this thread

The claim, the three places your own record contradicts it, and the freeze that holds the thread until you decide. Nothing on this thread sends while the flag is open.

Why it happens.

Usually nobody is lyingMost drift is honest. Someone joins a deal in month four, reads the most recent email instead of the contract, and repeats in good faith what they found there.

The record is scatteredThe terms live in a signed PDF, the concession lives in a reply, and the exception lives in a call nobody wrote down. No single document is wrong; no single document is complete.

“As we discussed” is load-bearingThe phrase does an agreement's work without being one. It asks you to accept a version of events rather than to consider a proposal — and disputing it feels like calling someone a liar.

Silence reads as consentA term restated twice and challenged neither time becomes the working assumption, and the working assumption becomes the invoice. The cost of objecting only ever goes up.

Why it gets missed.

Your inboxThreads are ordered by arrival, never by contradiction. The March email and the August email are a hundred and forty messages apart and will never be on screen together.

A CRMThe field reads Net-30 because somebody typed Net-30. It holds no opinion about the sentence in this morning's email that says otherwise, and nobody is going to open it to check.

A general AI assistantPaste in the thread and it will summarise the thread faithfully — Net-60 included, because that is what the thread says. It is not wrong. It just has no access to March.

The questions it answers.

Every finding runs the same seven questions, in the same order. This is what they come back with here.

What happened?An email arrived from Acme's procurement lead describing your payment terms as Net-60, and referring to it as something already discussed.
What changed?Nothing in the agreement — only the description of it. Your record says Net-30 in three independent places: the signed SOW, their own email from March 14, and the notes from the call that day.
What do I owe?Nothing new. No commitment on your side moved, and you have agreed to nothing. That matters, because the claim is framed to suggest you already did.
What are they waiting on?A reply — and specifically, whether you correct the record or let it stand. Silence is the mechanism here, not an absence of one.
What's at risk?Thirty additional days of float on every remaining invoice under this SOW, which on the outstanding balance is roughly $48,000 in working capital.
Why does it matter?Because the change costs nothing to apply and a great deal to reverse. Once finance updates the purchase order, correcting it stops being a clarification and becomes a dispute.
What should happen next?Reply before the PO is updated, citing your own record rather than your recollection. A draft is ready that quotes the SOW section and their March email, and offers Net-60 as something to agree to for Q4 rather than something to absorb.

What it will not tell youWhether they meant it. The system can show that the claim contradicts your record, and hand you every source it used — but it cannot tell you whether this is an honest mistake, an opening position, or a new colleague reading an old thread. That judgement is yours, which is exactly why the reply waits for you instead of going out on its own.

Commitment trackingWhat you owe, and what they owe you, in one ledger.Relationship decayThe other quiet change — nothing said, everything different.Risk alertsThe layer that runs the check and freezes the thread.Security & privacyWhat it reads, what it excludes, what happens when it isn't sure.

Straight answers.

Is this the same as contract redlining?

No. Redlining compares two versions of a document. Drift happens in the space between documents — in email, in status lines, in meeting recaps — where there is no second version to compare against, only your scattered record of what was agreed.

What if I did agree to the change and forgot?

Then the evidence will show it, and that is the useful outcome. The check searches your own history for anything supporting the claim as well as anything contradicting it. If a reply from you accepting Net-60 exists, it surfaces as support and no flag is raised.

Does it read my contracts?

Only what you have already given it. Attachment content is off by default and gated in code; the check runs on the email record and on documents you upload yourself, where the upload is the consent. Attachment file names and the fact that a message has one are used, because a contract revision arriving quietly is itself a signal.

What happens on the thread while a flag is open?

Nothing sends. An active high or critical flag freezes autonomous sending on that thread, and the check runs before any AI call rather than after one. It is enforced in code and there is no setting that turns it off.

Will it flag every mention of a number?

No. A first pass clears most email with no AI cost at all. Only claims about money, scope or dates that are attributed to a prior agreement go to the second pass, which searches your history and returns a verdict — supported, contradicted, partially supported, or unverifiable. Unverifiable is a real answer and it says so.

See what it finds in yours.

Connect Gmail and it reads your last 90 days. The first thing it shows you is what it found — with the sources.

See what it finds

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