The Chat functionality in Emma allows you to ask questions about the documents in the data room, get general legal answers, and access detailed product guidance — all in a single interface.

In the video below we will take you through the main features and functionality.

Why Chat matters in due diligence

Emma's AI Chat makes it easy for M&A lawyers and finance teams to review data room content, spot critical risks, and build disclosure lists. Chat speeds up clause comparisons, guides legal triage, helps resolve questions that matter for transaction timelines and negotiations, and now also surfaces step-by-step guidance from Emma's own product documentation.

Chat can search the data room, review due-diligence findings, consult legal sources, and fetch product how-to content before answering. It can run follow-up searches to narrow or expand results, then surface supporting sources, legal references, risk indicators, and product guides in a format tailored for legal review and platform navigation.

What Chat can help with

• Document research — find clauses, obligations, parties, dates, and other facts across the selected data-room documents. For example: "Which agreements contain a change-of-control clause?", "Do any contracts allocate foreign exchange risk?", "Which leases contain break options?", or "Which supplier agreements contain automatic renewal provisions?" Emma locates the relevant provisions and returns the supporting context, so you don't have to search through every document manually.
• Document comparison and synthesis — compare provisions across documents or summarise the points most relevant to a question.
• Identifying related document updates — ask what other documents may need updating after a legal, regulatory, or corporate change. For example, after creating a new class of shares, ask Emma which corporate documents — shareholders' agreements, articles of association, board resolutions, share registers — are likely to need amending.
• Risk and report review — discuss findings and red flags already identified in the due-diligence report.
• Legal research — consult connected law-book and statute sources, separate from documents uploaded to the data room, and cite the relevant provisions.
• Platform how-to and workflows — ask for Emma feature guides, alternative ways to complete diligence tasks, or step-by-step product instructions directly in chat.
• Follow-up questions — continue a discussion without repeating the full context; Chat retains recent turns and preserves older context for longer conversations.

Embedded tutorial videos, product screenshots, and Markdown-formatted step lists from Emma's documentation appear inside relevant answers, making it easier to learn or troubleshoot platform features while working on deal-related tasks.

Product documentation retrieval in Chat

Emma Chat is now integrated with a comprehensive index of the platform's product documentation. You can type any Emma-related how-to question — for example, how to export findings, adjust access, or run a report — and Chat will:

• Search the entire product manual using both full-text and vector search to find the most relevant guidance or step list.
• Present instructions as an answer directly inside chat. You do not have to navigate away or open a new tab.
• Embed tutorial videos from help articles as interactive players right in the chat, with short captions describing what each video covers.
• Include relevant screenshots from the documentation, as part of step-by-step answers where helpful.
• Suppress the usual data-room document source footers when an answer is drawn only from platform documentation, so the chat display remains focused on product guidance.

Use this feature for workflow troubleshooting, learning Emma features, or when you need a clear, action-focused answer about using the platform during diligence.

Where Chat is available

Emma's AI chat appears in three contexts, each with a different search scope:

All three surfaces return answers that may combine data-room, report, legal, and product documentation content as relevant. Use the Chat page for broad or platform-related questions; use Matrix chat when focused on a specific document type; use Emma Agent in the document viewer for file- or clause-level questions.

See Document chat and Matrix chat for dedicated guides.

Opening Chat

Chat is accessible from the main left sidebar. Click Chat to open a dedicated full-page interface for the current data room. Every data room has its own independent chat and history, and all product guidance shown is always up to date.

When you open Chat for the first time, Emma shows a welcome screen with an empty input box — just type your question and press Enter (or click the send button) to start.

Asking questions

Type your question in the input box at the bottom of the screen. You can ask about:

• Specific clause questions — "Does any agreement contain a change-of-control clause?"
• Summarisation — "Summarise the key obligations in the employment contracts"
• Comparison — "Which contracts have a notice period longer than 3 months?"
• Workflow or how-to — "How do I export the due-diligence findings?", "What is the best way to triage open risks?"
• General legal questions — Emma can also answer questions that are not document-specific

Press Enter to send, or use Shift + Enter to add a line break.

When Emma is working on your question, the chat shows a progress indicator. Answers that use product documentation will include direct excerpts, embedded videos, and relevant images from the help center. The chat does not require you to browse away from your work to read guidance — you get the step-by-step instructions directly in the answer.

Use this to build confidence in Emma's workflows, especially during critical deal phases such as pre-sign-off review, disclosure drafting, or when onboarding new users to advanced features.

You may click the stop button (×) while an answer is being generated to cancel the response.

Improving your questions with the "Improve" button

Above the chat input box, next to the sources button, you'll find the Improve button (magic wand icon). This feature rewrites your draft prompt into a clearer, more effective version for Chat.

• Enter your message in the input box as normal.
• Click Improve to get a refined prompt. Emma rewrites your text for clarity and completeness, streaming back the improved draft.
• Review or edit the improved prompt, or revert to your original.
• Send the improved prompt to Chat for a more relevant answer.

Using the Improve button helps ensure your questions are clear and deal-focused, especially for triaging rep-and-warranty schedule gaps, drafting disclosure requests, or surfacing overlooked risks.

The improved prompt always respects your source selection and context: product documentation is included in scope regardless of which area or document selection is active.

Sources — controlling which documents Emma searches

By default, Emma searches all documents in the data room. The Sources button in the input box's bottom left shows the current scope:

• All files — every data-room document
• N of M files — a custom user selection is active
• Searching N areas — your access is restricted

Click the Sources button to open the selection dialog. Narrowing the scope to fewer documents produces faster and more accurate document-based answers. Product documentation is always available and requires no selection.

Your source selection is saved for the session, so follow-up questions use the same set. Chat always draws product help content from the global documentation index.

Reading answers and citations

Emma's answers combine:

• Inline citations — numbered references that link to the exact passage in a source document when your question draws from the data room, the report, or legal sources.
• Source panel — below each answer, for any data-room or legal answer, listing all supporting documents.
• Legal references — shown for legislative sources cited.

When the answer comes purely from product documentation (for example, step-by-step Emma guidance), these document source panels and citations do not appear, keeping the display focused on the workflow or help steps provided.

Citations support legal review and disclosure — use answers with traceable sources for client communication, schedule building, or risk analysis.

If not all documents have finished processing, a "Still processing" badge will appear so you know the answer may not cover every file yet. Rely on the answer only after the badge disappears when completeness is critical for sign-off or disclosure.

Sessions and history

Each conversation is a separate session. Use the History button in the top-right corner to see all previous sessions and switch between them. Click New chat (the pencil icon) to start fresh at any time. Sessions save automatically so you can resume later.

Editing and rating messages

Hover over any message to reveal action buttons:

• Edit — update your question to regenerate an answer
• Copy — copy message text
• Thumbs up / Thumbs down — rate Emma's answer to help improve relevance, including for product guidance

Tips for better answers

• Be specific. Instead of "Tell me about contracts", ask "Which contracts have a limitation-of-liability clause, and what is the cap?"
• Narrow document sources for content questions. Choose just those documents you are reviewing for more precise results.
• Ask follow-up questions. Emma remembers conversation context.
• Start a new session for a new topic.
• Use the Improve button for unclear prompts.
• Watch for progress updates.
• Ask product how-to questions for platform steps or integrations. Chat pulls relevant help guides automatically — including videos and screenshots where available.

If you need additional help on Chat or any Emma feature, use the chat bubble at bottom right or contact [email protected]

Updated on: 23/07/2026