I Asked Gemini For Help With Legal Documents And Boy Did It Deliver

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

Whenever I have to sign a legal document by hand, I make sure to read it first. For example, I’m in the process of buying an apartment, and there’s a lot of paperwork involved, all of which I read carefully. I generally don’t trust people I don’t know, so I’d rather stay on the safe side of things and read every contract to avoid possible issues.

However, all that logic and due diligence go out the window when I’m online. Whenever I make a new account on a website, I usually agree to the company’s terms and conditions without reading them.

The problem for me is that all those terms and conditions are extremely long, and sometimes even complicated. And if it were just one or two, then I’d probably be willing to give them a read. But as a journalist who is constantly testing out new services, that means going through dozens and dozens of pages of legal documents on a monthly basis. I just figured since there’s usually no possible monetary loss by signing those documents, I can safely skip reading them.

It still feels a bit uncomfortable, though, so I decided to ask Gemini for help. While my trusty AI chatbot that I use daily is great at helping me answer all sorts of questions and finding typos in my writing, I wondered how good is it at simplifying legal documents for me and reducing some of the stress I experience when signing up for a new service. I decided to find out, and the results were quite impressive.

Hey Gemini, simplify these T&Cs for me

Mitja Rutnik / Android Authority

I’m a Gemini Advanced user but have decided to test this out with the free version of the chatbot, as that’s what most people use. I use Google’s services a lot, as I rely on Gmail, Drive, and Calendar for work, as well as services like YouTube and YouTube Music for entertainment. With that in mind, I decided to ask Gemini to help me figure out the ins and outs of Google’s terms and conditions, which I’m relatively familiar with, so I’ll know how good/bad Gemini will perform.

The plan is to get Gemini to summarize all the major points of the terms and conditions in plain language, thus removing all the legal lingo. After that, I’ll follow up with additional questions that I may have.

After my first prompt, Gemini provided me with a summary of both the terms of service and privacy policy, explaining everything in easy-to-understand language. The summary provided was around 500 words long, much less than the 20,000-word original on Google’s website.

It only took a few minutes to read, and I’m happy I did. Gemini did a great job at explaining things I’m interested in, including my data and the privacy I can expect around it, as well as the ownership of content in my account — my photos, videos, etc.

The ability to ask follow-up questions makes things that much better.

I asked a few follow-up questions, mainly about my privacy concerns related to the data Google collects on me. Gemini listed out all the info Google collects about me and why that is. It even mentioned the main reason, which is for Google to show me more relevant info — mainly ads — as that’s how it makes the majority of its money. When asked what I could do to stop this, Gemini gave me instructions on how to protect my privacy by directing me to various privacy settings in my Google account that I should potentially disable.

While I had my issues with Gemini when testing features like Deep Research, this aspect of the chatbot worked more or less flawlessly. It’s a real-time saver, as I can get the gist of it in less than a few minutes compared to the few hours it would take me to read the terms and conditions. All the follow-up questions I can ask just add to the experience, so those long terms and conditions don’t feel so overwhelming to me.

So going forward, I’ll definitely use Gemini for help with terms and conditions before giving my data away to a company. While Google’s T&Cs are relatively straightforward, that’s not always true for other companies, making Gemini that much more useful.

Taking it up a notch

Mitja Rutnik / Android Authority

One could argue that, while extremely useful, this was a relatively simple task for Gemini. So I decided to make things a bit more difficult, just to see how well Gemini performs.

As I already mentioned, I bought a new apartment recently, and there are tons of documents I had to review and sign. One of the docs sent my way includes all the technical specifications for the entire development alongside a bunch of legal lingo that can be hard to understand. The document is close to 100 pages long, is in Slovenian — my native language — and is scanned, making it a bit harder to read in some places. However, I used Gemini Advanced for this test, as the free version doesn’t support PDF files.

I won’t bore you with all the details and prompts I used, but I will tell you that Gemini helped me understand the document and find those hidden nuggets of information I was looking for. It summarized the main points perfectly, ditching all the legal lingo as well as all the details that aren’t super important to me.

Gemini even looked up the warranty laws mentioned in the document.

For example, the document doesn’t mention the warranty period but states that it is covered by a specific law. When I asked Gemini about the warranty, it not only mentioned the law but also searched for it and then gave me all the details I needed. And it only took a few seconds.

Whether I had a question about pricing, deposit amount, number of apartments, or other more technical questions about construction, Gemini performed flawlessly. It saved me a lot of time, as finding details in a long document like that and trying to make sense of the laws mentioned can be time-consuming.

So, do I recommend it? Gemini performed a lot better than I thought it would in legal matters. I think it’s always smart to get an overview of a company’s terms and conditions before signing up for a service, and Gemini can help with that. It’s a real time-saver and can dumb things down, making them understandable to anyone without a law degree.

Even with more complex topics like long contracts, Gemini works brilliantly. I’d still suggest you get a lawyer for super important things you need to be certain of since Gemini can make mistakes, but for things like summarization and highlighting specific parts of a document, Gemini is more than useful.