This issue covers 24 to 30 October, so it picks up a busy weekend as well as the week. Most of it is for three moments: the document that has to be signed today, the meeting that needs someone in charge, and the afternoon the connection gives up.
The Mac app grew up a lot too: it works offline, sits in Finder and reads your scans. And the other side’s redlines finally come in the way they sent them.
What’s new in ModulawAI, every Friday.
Send anything for signature
If you try one thing this week, try this. Every document in the editor now has Send for signature, next to Make contract. So does every PDF in your Library or on a matter. Add who signs, the order and when the link expires. If the document already has signature fields, the dialog fills in who signs, with names and emails for the colleagues it recognises.
On a PDF you can drag a box where each person signs. Leave the boxes out and the signatures go on a page at the end.
While it’s out, a strip under the document shows who has signed, with Remind, Copy link and Withdraw. If someone changes the words, nobody can sign until you send the revised version. When the last person signs, you get a signed copy with a signing reference on every page and a digital seal, and the original locks. If it belongs to a matter, the signed copy is filed there for you.
When a link isn’t enough, ask a signer to prove who they are first. We can email them a code, or you give them one by phone. A colleague who opens the link while signed in to ModulawAI goes straight in, with their saved signature ready, and can press Sign now from inside the app.
Contracts has a new Signing view as well: everything your firm has out for signature, what was declined or expired, and what’s signed, with who has opened each one.
Send them a code, start when you’re ready
Go to app.modulaw.ai/call. That’s ModulawAI Calls, a home for your meetings. Start a meeting now and you get a link and a short code to send. Schedule one for later and it goes on your calendar with the usual invite. The person you’re meeting doesn’t need an account. They open the link, or type the code.
Meetings also have a proper host now. The organiser is the host, the colleagues assigned to it are co-hosts, and only they can record or end it. When you leave you can end it for everyone, just leave, or hand it to someone else. Once everyone from your firm has gone, the meeting ends by itself, recording and all.
Recording is one button with three choices: transcript only, transcript and audio, or transcript and video. Everyone on the call, guests included, sees a badge while it’s on.
Your matters, with no internet
The ModulawAI app for Mac now keeps your case manager on your computer. Open a matter on a plane and it’s there. You can create and edit matters, add notes and tasks, and log time. When you’re back online the changes sync in a few seconds. If you and a colleague changed the same matter, we show you where you clashed. Invoicing and attachments still need a connection.
Firm admins decide how long an offline copy lasts: seven days without signing in before it locks, and thirty before it’s deleted, unless you change them in security settings.
“Open the contract in my Smith folder”
The assistant on the desktop now reads PDFs and Word files in the folders you’ve shared with it. Ask it to summarise the two agreements in your Smith folder and it reads them where they are. Ask it to review one for risks to the tenant and it brings the file into ModulawAI, asking first.
Switch on Remote Control in the Mac app and you can do the same from a browser on another computer: ask from the office about a folder sitting at home. It’s off until you turn it on, and one click disconnects every browser.
Your documents, in Finder
Sign in to the Mac app and ModulawAI now appears in Finder, like any other drive. There’s a folder for each workspace, with Firm, Cases, Personal and Shared with me inside. Everything is listed, and a file downloads when you open it. Open a Word file from there, press save, and a few seconds later it’s a new version in ModulawAI, with its history. Deletes go to the recycle bin for 30 days.
A folder of scans you can search
The desktop assistant now reads scanned PDFs and photos of documents on your own computer, with no upload and no internet. Share a folder of scans and it reads them quietly in the background, so you can ask for the page that mentions a name, a plot number or a date, even offline. You can pause it whenever you like.
The other side’s redline, as they sent it
Open a Word file the other side has marked up, and you now see what they marked. Their insertions and deletions come in as suggestions you can accept or reject where they sit. Their comments come in as threads beside the words they were about. Each keeps the name of whoever made it, marked “in Word”.
Until now a redlined file came in as if every change had been accepted, and the comments were gone. If you’ve been keeping Word open beside us just to see what changed, you can close it.
When the money doesn’t match the receipts
Another big week for finance teams, because one firm walked us through how their requisitions really move.
Whoever pays out an approved requisition can now decline it, or send it back with a comment. Approvers can send a retirement back too, and the person who raised it sees why. When someone spends more than they were given, they can claim the difference as a top-up requisition, which goes through the normal chain. When someone owes money back, the retirement only closes once the full balance is returned.
Under Approval policy you can set separate chains for retirements and top-ups, and requisition PDFs now carry a stamp for every status.
Your firm’s own sign-in
If your firm is on Enterprise and uses Microsoft Entra ID, Okta or Google Workspace, an admin can switch on single sign-on under Settings. Your people sign in with the account they already use. With Entra ID or Okta, removing someone there also signs them out of ModulawAI everywhere, and keeps their history.
Research and chat
- Deep Research now works on the parts of a big question at the same time, so long answers come back sooner.
- On long pieces of work, the assistant keeps a running log of what it found, so “carry on” picks up where it left off.
- If you haven’t set a jurisdiction, the assistant no longer assumes one. It takes it from your question or the document, or asks. It also quotes amounts exactly as written.
- For a few days, questions that needed a statute section came back without the statute. That’s fixed, and I’m sorry if it caught you.
The small stuff
- The Mac app has real menus: Cmd+N for a new conversation, Cmd+Shift+N for a new case, Cmd+1 to 3 to move between Chat, Case Manager and AI Employees. It updates itself. Windows is coming.
- Also in the Mac app, a beta you switch on in Settings: live visuals. Press a shortcut, ask out loud, and it answers in speech while circling and labelling the things on your screen it’s talking about.
- Case note attachments, expense receipts and Word imports now take files up to 50MB.
- Give an AI employee reference files straight from your computer, with Add files or Add folder.
- Sign out now gives you two choices: this device, or everywhere. It also sits at the foot of the Settings popup.
- A table longer than a page now splits across pages in the editor, the way Word does, instead of blanking the rest of the document.
- If a connected mailbox shows no mail, the Inbox tells you why and what to do next.
- Inbox, Contracts and The Floor now appear in Settings, Modules, so you can hide them for a role.
- Team Chat’s emoji button works again, and a quoted message jumps to the original when you click it.
- We reviewed how sign-in and the client portal check who you are, and fixed what it turned up.
That’s the week. Everything above is live at app.modulaw.ai, and the desktop parts are in the latest Mac app.
If a signing, a call or a requisition still doesn’t go the way your firm works, tell me. Reply to the newsletter or message us from inside the app. Those messages come to me. See you next Friday.
Abiola
Founder, ModulawAI