Product and intended use
Define the configuration, people, information and tasks being assessed.
Product and plan covered
Public claim only
The SaaS Terms define Cicero as 'the AI-driven software-as-a-service known as Cicero developed for use with documents in the legal industry, including to search, review, summarise and synthesise information, including all software, applications plugins, mobile applications and other applications and services provided from time to time'. What a particular customer gets is set by the Order Form and the Documentation, and the Order Form ranks above the standard terms where they conflict. No tiers or editions are published.
Ask: Which of the six published functions, and which import and export paths, will our Order Form actually cover, and what does the Documentation say the service includes?
Deployment model
Public claim only
The SaaS Terms describe a hosted software-as-a-service accessed with per-user credentials and state that 'Automatise's Cicero servers are located in Australia'. The home page adds 'Cicero is powered exclusively by privately hosted language models. No shared infrastructure.' and, under a GDPR heading, 'Deploy in any jurisdiction using secure private cloud.' Nothing read says whether the environment is multi-tenant or a separate deployment per customer, and no cloud provider is named.
Ask: Is our data held in a tenancy shared with other clients or a separate deployment, which cloud provider and Australian region is used, and where do the privately hosted models physically run?
AI features in scope
Public claim only
The vendor publishes six functions: Pleading Analysis, which extracts every allegation from a Statement of Claim and maps each to the response in the Defence as a pleadings matrix; Chronologies and Timelines, filtered for relevance against nominated allegations and exported as schedules of evidence; Investigations, a cross-document query across large sets; Extractions and Coding of customer-defined data points; Evidence Matrices, which test propositions against the document set and mark gaps and contradictions; and Dramatis Personae, listing individuals by role, relationship and relevance. Every function is a model-performed analysis; there is no non-AI product underneath.
Ask: Demonstrate each of the six functions on our document set, and state which are generally available today versus in development.
Jurisdictions and legal content
Public claim only
The product is presented for litigation and disputes and works on the customer's own documents rather than a law library; no primary-law source is claimed. The contracting entity, governing law, business-day definition and currency are Australian. The vendor's news index includes an item on an update to a New South Wales Supreme Court practice note on artificial intelligence, the body of which renders as a stub.
Ask: Which Australian court practice notes on AI use has Cicero been assessed against, and what does the product produce to satisfy a disclosure requirement about AI-assisted preparation?
Vendor content directing how AI describes the product
Not confirmed
Checked on 27 September 2026. A map of cicero.com.ai returned 26 URLs and none was /llms.txt, /ai-info, /ai or /for-ai. None of the pages read - home page, terms and conditions page, the downloaded SaaS Terms, the privacy policy or the two news items - contains a block addressed to AI models, assistants or crawlers. This is a negative result on the URLs returned and the pages read, not proof that no such page exists elsewhere.
Ask: Does Automatise publish any page or block of content that instructs AI models, assistants or crawlers how to describe Cicero?
Data, controls and requirements
Compare the actual configuration with firm, client and jurisdiction requirements, supported by evidence.
Client authority and professional use
Not confirmed
The SaaS Terms place the authority burden on the firm: the client must make all disclosures and obtain all consents so that it may lawfully provide Client Personal Information to Automatise and so that Automatise may lawfully handle it, must comply with the Privacy Laws in its use of Cicero, and indemnifies Automatise against third-party claims arising from reliance on Output. Legal professional privilege is not mentioned in the terms or the privacy policy. The privacy policy states 'we will never share your confidential Client Data ... with any third party excepting our cloud service providers'.
Ask: What client notice or consent do you expect a firm to obtain before its clients' documents are loaded into Cicero, and do you take any contractual position on preserving legal professional privilege over material processed by the models?
Foundation-model providers
Not confirmed
The home page states 'Cicero is powered exclusively by privately hosted language models' and goes no further. No model provider, model family, version or hosting arrangement is named on the home page, the terms and conditions page, the SaaS Terms or the privacy policy. The SaaS Terms define Automatise Material to include 'machine learned algorithms generated by Cicero', which are the vendor's property. A cached third-party university publication annotates one Australian deployment with two model vendor names; that is not vendor-published and is deliberately not recorded here.
Ask: Name every model used by each Cicero function, its version, who publishes it, where the weights are hosted, and what notice we get before a model is changed.
Subprocessors
Not confirmed
The SaaS Terms allow subcontracting on notice alone: 'Automatise, after notifying the Client in writing, may subcontract the performance of all or any part of its obligations under this Agreement.' They also acknowledge that 'Automatise relies on certain Third Party Services in order to operate Cicero' and disclaim liability for them. The privacy policy says confidential Client Data is never shared with any third party 'excepting our cloud service providers'. No subprocessor register, no cloud provider name and no objection right is published anywhere read.
Ask: Provide a dated list of every subcontractor and cloud provider that can touch our documents, in which country each operates, and give us a right to object before a new one is engaged.
Training on customer content
Not confirmed
The SaaS Terms contain no prohibition on model training. They do contain a right over de-identified data: 'Automatise may collect, copy, transmit, analyse or otherwise use anonymised Client Material (including without limitation, the Client's use of Client Material, information concerning Client Material and data derived therefrom) to maintain and improve Cicero. Once anonymous, such information is Automatise Material (and not Client Material).' The client's licence to Automatise over Client Material is for providing Cicero and includes a right to sublicense. Neither the terms nor the privacy policy says whether improvement includes training or fine-tuning a model.
Ask: Does 'maintain and improve Cicero' include training, fine-tuning or evaluating any model on our anonymised matter content, what anonymisation is applied, and will you contract out of that right for our matters?
Feedback and quality monitoring
Public claim only
The SaaS Terms define Client Feedback broadly as 'any ideas, feedback, suggestions, enhancement, feature requests, usage information insights or other similar information given by the Client Automatise during the use of Cicero by the Client and End Users', excludes it from Client Material, and provide that 'all Intellectual Property Rights in the Client Feedback are owned by, and vest in, Automatise upon creation'. Nothing read says whether in-product corrections to an output are treated as Client Feedback.
Ask: When a lawyer edits or reclassifies an output, is that correction captured as Client Feedback, and if so what is retained and what is it used for?
Retention of documents, outputs and query history
Public claim only
The SaaS Terms require each party to return, or on request destroy or permanently de-identify, all copies of the other party's Confidential Information within 10 business days of expiry or termination, subject to carve-outs for legal compliance, litigation, internal quality assurance and record-keeping, and performing the agreement. A separate clause says Automatise 'may delete or destroy the Client Material 90 days after the termination or expiry of this Agreement'. No period is published for how long documents, Outputs, chronologies or query history are held while the agreement runs. The privacy policy keeps personal information only for the duration of the relationship unless law requires longer.
Ask: Reconcile the 10 business day return obligation with the 90 day deletion right, and state the in-life retention period for uploaded documents, Outputs and query logs on a closed matter.
Deletion and certified erasure
Public claim only
Deletion is addressed only through the Confidential Information clause - return, destruction or permanent de-identification within 10 business days of expiry or termination if requested - and the right for Automatise to delete or destroy Client Material 90 days after termination. There is no matter-level deletion function described, no deletion timetable while the agreement is running, and no certified-deletion commitment. The client is separately made responsible for 'securing, protecting and backing up Client accounts and Client Material contained in Cicero ... in a system outside of Cicero such as a document management system or document review platform'.
Ask: Can we delete a single matter and its Outputs on demand, what is the elapsed time to permanent deletion including backups, and will you certify deletion in writing?
Vendor and verifier access to content
Public claim only
The SaaS Terms make Client Material the client's Confidential Information, restrict disclosure to Personnel 'who need to know the Confidential Information for the purposes of this Agreement', and require the discloser to ensure those people are bound by substantially similar confidentiality obligations. Client Personal Information must be treated as the client's Confidential Information and handled only as needed to provide Cicero. Nothing read describes an approval process for support staff to open a matter, background screening, or a customer-visible access log. The home page states 'No shared infrastructure.'
Ask: Which Automatise personnel can open our matters, under what ticketed approval and screening, and can we obtain a log of vendor access to our documents?
Access control, SSO and audit
Public claim only
The SaaS Terms give each End User a single set of login and password credentials, require that no set is used by more than one individual, require the client to block, disable or change credentials when a person ceases to be an End User, and require immediate notice if credentials are disclosed to anyone else. The client is responsible for all activity under its accounts, authorised or not, and Automatise is not responsible for unauthorised access to the client's account. Multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, SCIM provisioning and audit-log export are not mentioned in anything read.
Ask: Is multi-factor authentication mandatory and is single sign-on or SCIM available, and can we export an audit log of who opened which matter and which analyses were run?
Encryption in transit and at rest
Not confirmed
Nothing read states that data is encrypted in transit or at rest. The SaaS Terms contain no security schedule and no encryption obligation. The privacy policy's security section lists 'hosting information your provide us in the same country of residence', physical security of premises and records, access restricted to personnel who need it, and 'having technological measures in place (for example, anti-virus software, fire walls)'. The home page cites an ISO 27001 certification but no encryption detail, and no security or trust-centre page appeared in a map of the site.
Ask: Confirm in writing the encryption standards in transit and at rest for documents, Outputs and backups, and the key-management arrangement, and add a security schedule to the agreement.
Independent security assurance
Public claim only
The home page displays four claims: 'ISO 27001 - Certified information security management across all systems and processes', 'SOC Type II - Independent verification of security controls, availability, and confidentiality over time', 'ISO 42001' and 'GDPR Compliant'. A news item dated 22 May 2025 announces that Cicero 'is now among the first solutions worldwide to achieve ISO 42001 certification for AI Systems Management'. No certification body, certificate number, scope statement, audit period or expiry date is published on any page read, and the SaaS Terms contain no obligation to hold or maintain any certification.
Ask: Provide the ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certificates and the SOC report with certification body, scope and dates, and add a contractual obligation to maintain them for the term.
Contract, entity, liability and forum
Public claim only
The SaaS Terms name the contracting entity as 'Corporate Solutions Group Pty Ltd ACN 632 573 105 of Unit 1603, 568 Oxford Street, Bondi Junction NSW 2022 trading as Automatise ABN 48 632 573 105'. The laws of New South Wales govern, with non-exclusive New South Wales jurisdiction. Aggregate liability for all loss is limited to the total fees paid under the agreement, Consequential Loss is excluded, Cicero is supplied 'as is' with all warranties disclaimed to the extent permitted, and the client indemnifies Automatise for third-party reliance on Output. The Order Form ranks above the standard sections, which can otherwise only be varied by written agreement. There is no data processing agreement, and the terms page publishes the SaaS Terms only as a document to download.
Ask: Will you sign a data processing agreement and a security schedule alongside the Order Form, and will you lift the liability cap for a breach of confidentiality or a data breach affecting privileged client material?
Cross-border transfers and APP 8
Public claim only
The SaaS Terms carry a clause headed 'No offshore transfer': 'Automatise's Cicero servers are located in Australia. Automatise will ensure that any User Content is processed in Australia and will not be transferred to, or be accessible from, any other country.' The privacy policy repeats that 'we will never transfer your confidential Client Data, including any personal information contained in Client Data, overseas' while noting that some third-party service providers handling contact-level personal information may be based outside Australia, including in the United States. The home page adds 'No data leaves your sovereign jurisdiction.' The clause covers processing, which on its face includes model inference, but no region, cloud provider or backup location is named.
Ask: Does the no-offshore-transfer clause cover model inference, backups, logs, telemetry and support access without exception, and in which Australian region are the servers and model endpoints?
Incident notification and history
Not confirmed
The SaaS Terms contain no data breach notification obligation on Automatise. 'Cyber Attack' is defined only to support Automatise's right to suspend the service, and the notification duties run the other way: the client must notify Automatise immediately if End User credentials are disclosed and as soon as practicable on becoming aware of any breach of the agreement. The privacy policy sets out a complaints process and refers unresolved complaints to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner but makes no breach-notification commitment. No incident history is published.
Ask: What notification period from discovery will you commit to for a data breach affecting our matters, will you support our own notifiable data breach assessment, and have there been any incidents to date?
Change notice for models, terms and processors
Public claim only
Sections 1 to 17 of the SaaS Terms may only be amended by written agreement between the parties, but Automatise 'reserves the right to update the Service Level Agreement from time to time by notice to the Client'. Documentation is provided 'from time to time', maintenance is applied with reasonable efforts at prior notice except where urgent, and subcontracting requires only written notice. Nothing read gives any notice obligation before a model, model version or analysis method changes, and the terms and conditions page shows the SaaS Terms were updated on 25 March 2026 and the privacy policy on 20 February 2026.
Ask: What notice will we receive before a model or analysis method behind a function changes, and can we require re-validation of an output type after such a change?
Export and exit
Public claim only
The agreement renews automatically unless either party gives at least 60 days' notice before the end of the current term, and no refunds are offered other than as required by law. On termination all licences cease immediately, the client must return all Automatise Materials, and Automatise may delete or destroy Client Material after 90 days. The client is made responsible for backing up Client Material outside Cicero. Export while the service runs is a product feature - matrices, chronologies and coding decisions to Word or Excel, or pushed back to iManage or Relativity - but no export obligation appears in the terms.
Ask: On exit, in what formats and within what period will documents, chronologies, coding decisions and matrices be handed back, and what happens to work product if we terminate mid-matter?
Connectors and third-party services
Public claim only
The home page publishes imports from Relativity, iManage and a local computer, push-back to iManage and Relativity, and NetDocuments, Nuix and SharePoint as 'on the way'. The SaaS Terms define Third Party Services as 'any third party services connected to and/or integrated with Cicero', state that Automatise 'relies on certain Third Party Services in order to operate Cicero', and disclaim liability for interruptions or failures caused by them, including a Force Majeure Event defined to include 'failure of a third party service provider'. No third party is named.
Ask: Name every third-party service Cicero depends on to operate, what our documents pass through, and which of those sit inside the no-offshore-transfer commitment.
Open-web search
Not confirmed
Every function described operates on the customer's own document set - the Statement of Claim and Defence, the imported document population, the propositions the customer states. Nothing on the home page, in the SaaS Terms or in the privacy policy says whether Cicero can retrieve anything from the open web, and the no-offshore-transfer clause addresses where User Content is processed rather than what the system may fetch.
Ask: Can Cicero retrieve anything from outside our document set, including the open web or any legal database, and if so can that be disabled?
Agent actions and confirmation
Public claim only
The published workflow has three stages and puts the action at the end with the user: an automated first pass, a human-in-the-loop stage where 'Your team reviews AI-generated outputs with full source traceability' and can 'Edit chronology entries, reclassify extractions, verify evidence links', then 'Export & Integrate' where refined outputs are pushed back to iManage or Relativity or exported. Nothing read describes any step Cicero takes on its own, and nothing read describes a confirmation control on the push-back to a document management system.
Ask: Does the push-back to iManage or Relativity require a user to confirm each write, and can Cicero create, overwrite or delete anything in those systems without a person approving it?
Human review before use
Public claim only
The SaaS Terms make review the client's obligation rather than a product control: Output 'is made available to the Client solely for general informational purposes and is provided on an as is basis', 'is not intended as advice and must not be relied upon as such', the client 'must not rely on any Output and must undertake its own enquiries', and the client indemnifies Automatise against third-party reliance on Output. The home page frames the same point as design - 'AI performs the analysis. Your lawyers make the decisions' and 'Cicero does not replace legal judgment'. No product control that forces or records a named reviewer is described.
Ask: Does the product record who reviewed and accepted each entry in a chronology or matrix, and can an output be exported before a reviewer signs it off?
