Can an AI agent sign a contract for you?

The short answer

• Contracts formed by software are valid. Both laws let a contract be formed through an "electronic agent", meaning a program acting without a person reviewing each step.
• The agent's acts are yours. Under ESIGN, the agent's action has to be legally attributable to the person to be bound. In plain terms: if it's your agent, you're on the hook.
• A signature still needs intent. An electronic signature is something a person executes or adopts with the intent to sign. Letting an AI apply your signature without you invites a dispute about whether you meant it.
• Courts are still catching up. These rules predate today's AI assistants, and how they apply to an assistant that writes its own terms hasn't been settled. Treat the edges with care.

What the ESIGN Act says

The ESIGN Act, the federal e-signature law passed in 2000, has a section written for exactly this. A contract relating to a transaction in or affecting interstate commerce can't be denied legal effect, validity or enforceability solely because its formation, creation or delivery involved the action of one or more electronic agents, so long as the action of any such agent is legally attributable to the person to be bound (15 U.S.C. § 7001(h)).

That definition comfortably covers an AI agent that sends, accepts or answers documents without a person checking each step. A chatbot that only drafts text for you to read isn't acting independently in that sense; you are.

What UETA says

The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act is the state-level law, adopted by every state except New York, which has its own e-signature statute. UETA defines an electronic agent in nearly the same words as ESIGN (section 2(6)) and then goes further, with a section on automated transactions:

1. Agent to agent. A contract may be formed by the interaction of the parties' electronic agents, even if no individual was aware of or reviewed the agents' actions or the resulting terms (section 14(1)).
2. Agent to person. A contract may be formed between an electronic agent and an individual, including when the individual takes actions they're free to refuse and knows will cause the agent to complete the transaction (section 14(2)).
3. The terms are ordinary contract law. What the contract actually says, and whether it holds, is decided by the substantive law that applies to it (section 14(3)).

Two more UETA sections matter. Section 9 says an electronic record or signature is attributable to a person if it was that person's act, which can be shown in any manner, including by the security procedure used. Section 10 deals with mistakes: in an automated transaction, an individual can avoid the effect of their own error if the other side's electronic agent gave them no chance to prevent or correct it, provided they act promptly, return what they received and haven't benefited from it.

What it means for you

• You're responsible for your agent. If your AI assistant sends a contract to a customer, the law treats it as you sending it. A wrong price, a wrong name or a clause you never meant still goes out under your business's name.
• Give agents a short leash. Let them look things up, draft and prepare freely, and keep a person on anything that commits you: sending, accepting, paying, cancelling.
• Let people sign. Having an assistant prepare the envelope is fine. Having it apply your signature weakens the evidence that you intended to sign, which is the point of a signature.
• Give the other side a way to fix mistakes. If customers deal with your automated system, show them a summary they can correct before it completes. Under UETA section 10, skipping that step can let a customer undo an order they made in error.
• Keep records. An audit trail showing who approved what, and when, is how you prove an act was yours, or wasn't.

How SignMaster handles AI agents

SignMaster lets assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot work with your account through Connect an AI, and it's built around the line above. The assistant can look up envelopes, start drafts and write templates. It can't email anyone: sending, reminders and voids become requests that you approve in SignMaster, with every recipient listed, and they expire if nobody answers. The assistant never signs. Your signature goes on when you sign, and each signer signs from their own link, with the audit trail recording who signed, when and from what device.