Extract insights from documents in seconds, not hours
Your team's internal research tool for the data room. Type a question in plain English and Peony's AI reads across every file — PDFs, spreadsheets, contracts, slide decks — and returns a cited answer with the exact page number. No more opening documents one by one.
How AI Document Extraction works
Cross-file intelligence
Ask a single question and Peony reads across every document in your data room — PDFs, spreadsheets, slide decks, contracts, and more. One query, one consolidated answer, no manual file-by-file review.
Cited answers with exact page numbers
Every response references the specific document, page, and passage it was sourced from. Click through to verify the source yourself. No hallucinated answers — every claim is traceable.
Answers in seconds, not hours
Ask a question across hundreds of documents and get a synthesized answer in seconds. What used to take a team days of manual review now takes a single prompt.
Natural language — no query syntax
Ask questions the way you would ask a colleague. No Boolean operators, no keyword guessing. Peony understands context, follow-ups, and complex multi-part questions.
Permission-aware AI
The AI only answers from documents the user has permission to access. If a file is restricted, it stays restricted — even from AI queries. Security is enforced at every layer.
Your team researches faster
Research a target's financials
Ask "What was EBITDA for the last 3 years?" and get a consolidated answer with citations from multiple financial documents. No more opening spreadsheets one by one to piece together a picture.
Surface hidden risks across contracts
Ask "Are there any change-of-control provisions?" and the AI finds them across 200 contracts you would never search manually. Catch what keyword search misses.
Prepare for meetings in seconds
Before a board meeting or investor call, ask "Summarize the key terms of the latest SPA" and get a briefing with exact citations — no junior associate needed.
AI-powered Q&A without enterprise pricing
Ideals, Firmex, and Digify charge extra for AI features — or don't offer them at all. Peony includes AI Extraction on the Business plan at $40/admin/month — no six-figure contracts, no per-query fees. Set up in under 5 minutes.
"Every now and then, you come across a product that has a massive positive impact on your business. Peony is one such product."
Panos Moutafis
Founder & CEO, Zenus
Need structured Q&A for due diligence?
Smart Q&A lets counterparties submit questions and your team approves AI-drafted answers — a formal workflow, not a chat.
Frequently asked questions
How do M&A lawyers use AI extraction to review contract clauses across hundreds of documents?
M&A counsel typically need to review change-of-control provisions, indemnification caps, non-compete clauses, and assignment restrictions across hundreds of contracts in the target's data room. Peony's AI Extraction lets your legal team ask a single question — such as 'Which contracts contain change-of-control triggers?' — and get a consolidated answer citing the exact document, page, and clause across every agreement in the room. No more opening contracts one by one to build a clause matrix manually. Unlike Ideals, Firmex, and Digify, which offer no AI capabilities, Peony includes AI Extraction on the Business plan ($40/admin/month) with 1,000 AI credits per month. Every plan includes 10 AI credits per month to get started.
How does Peony's AI Extraction differ from Smart Q&A?
Peony's AI Extraction is your deal team's internal research tool — associates and counsel ask questions and get instant, cited answers to prepare for management presentations, surface risks in SPAs and NDAs, or reconcile financial statements across portfolio companies. Smart Q&A is a separate, structured workflow for external counterparties: a buyer's diligence team submits questions about the target, AI drafts answers from the data room, and the sell-side team reviews and approves before sending. In an M&A context, your team uses AI Extraction to prepare; the buyer uses Smart Q&A to ask. Both are available on the Business plan ($40/admin/month).
Can a PE associate search across financials, legal docs, and contracts simultaneously?
Yes. A PE associate running diligence on a portfolio company can ask a single question — such as 'What are the EBITDA adjustments across the last three audited financials?' — and Peony's cross-file intelligence reads the audited statements, management accounts, and quality-of-earnings report simultaneously. It returns a synthesized answer with citations linking to exact pages across PDFs, Excel models, Word documents, PowerPoint CIMs, and scanned files via OCR. The same workflow applies to reviewing vendor contracts for renewal risk or scanning employment agreements for key-person provisions. Legacy VDRs like Ideals and Firmex require you to open and search files one by one.
Are AI-generated answers accurate enough for M&A due diligence?
Peony's AI Extraction cites the exact document, page, and passage for every claim — so when an associate asks 'Are there any material adverse change clauses in the SPA?', the answer links directly to the relevant section. You click through and verify the source yourself. The AI only answers from documents in the data room — no external training data, no hallucinated facts. For PE portfolio reviews and legal due diligence, this means every finding on indemnification baskets, IP assignments, or NDA carve-outs is traceable and auditable. All data is protected by AES-256 encryption at rest and TLS 1.3 in transit, backed by SOC 2-ready, GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA compliance.
Is the AI aware of document permissions and access controls?
Yes. Peony's AI is permission-aware — it only returns answers from documents the user has access to. In an M&A data room, this means the buyer's diligence team cannot surface management-only documents through AI queries, and different bidder groups see only their permitted files. If a PE firm restricts sensitive portfolio financials to the lead partner's group, the AI enforces that boundary automatically. Peony also offers controlled redaction, letting your legal team permanently black out commercially sensitive terms in NDAs, SPAs, or employment agreements before sharing with counterparties. No other mid-market VDR offers permission-aware AI.
How much does AI document extraction cost for a boutique M&A advisory firm?
Peony includes AI Extraction on the Business plan ($40/admin/month, 1 TB storage, 1,000 AI credits/month). The Free plan ($0, 2 GB) and Pro plan ($20/admin/month, 200 GB) include 10 and 200 AI credits per month respectively for basic AI usage. There are no per-viewer, per-page, or per-link limits on any plan — so costs stay predictable whether you have 5 bidders or 50 reviewing the data room. A boutique M&A advisory running three concurrent mandates pays a fraction of what Datasite charges for a single deal (Datasite's enterprise contracts often exceed $60,000 per year). Ideals, Firmex, and Digify do not offer AI document extraction at all.
How fast can a deal team set up AI document extraction for a live transaction?
Peony's data room is ready in under 5 minutes. Upload the seller's CIM, financial statements, contracts, and corporate records, and AI indexes them automatically via Auto-Indexing — no manual tagging required. Once uploaded, your M&A team can immediately start extracting insights: ask about revenue concentration, key customer contracts, or pending litigation across the entire document set. For PE firms preparing a portfolio company for exit, the same workflow applies — upload the company's diligence pack and start answering buyer questions the same day. Legacy VDRs require days of manual setup before documents are even searchable.
What types of questions can I ask the AI?
You can ask Peony anything you would ask a colleague who has read every document. M&A teams ask questions like 'Which contracts contain change-of-control or assignment restrictions?' to build clause matrices in seconds. PE associates ask 'What were the EBITDA adjustments in the quality-of-earnings report and how do they compare to management projections?' to reconcile financials across sources. Legal teams ask 'Summarize the indemnification and survival provisions across all SPAs' to prepare negotiation memos. Startup founders ask 'Do any investor side letters conflict with the Series B terms?' to get ahead of diligence questions. The AI handles follow-up questions, comparative queries, and risk-surfacing prompts — tasks that would take hours of manual review.
Related features
Smart Q&A
Let counterparties submit questions and get AI-drafted answers your team reviews before sending.
AI Rooms
Set up data rooms faster with AI-powered folder templates, missing document detection, and completeness scoring.
Auto-Indexing
Automatically classify, tag, and make every uploaded document searchable with full-text search and OCR.