PwC South Africa uses AI to simplify legal documents and earns top recognition at SAP BTP Hackathon

Drawing on advanced capabilities of the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), the PwC team developed LegalEase, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform designed to transform how individuals and organizations engage with legal documents.

For PwC South Africa, simplifying legal complexity wasn’t just a technical challenge, it was an opportunity to close a critical gap in consumer protection and business transparency. Drawing on advanced capabilities of the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), the PwC team developed LegalEase, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform designed to transform how individuals and organizations engage with legal documents.

LegalEase was born out of a growing concern: most people don’t understand the contracts they sign. According to data shared by the PwC team, over 90% of consumers admit to signing agreements without reading them. These documents often contain confusing clauses, complex legal terminology, and can lead to unexpected charges, difficulties in cancellation, and misunderstandings about obligations.

To address this, the PwC team built a solution that uses artificial intelligence to scan and summarize legal documents, provide contextual explanations via a Q&A module, and translate content into the user’s preferred language. Backed by SAP BTP’s capabilities, such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), prompt engineering, and knowledge graphs, the platform enables accurate and adaptive responses based on document content and user queries. It also links users to related services and policies, offering both clarity and value.

LegalEase is more than a consumer-facing tool. Its architecture is designed to scale across multiple environments, from onboarding new employees and explaining HR policies, to helping businesses validate contract scopes or statements of work. It also offers anonymized insights to help organizations identify patterns in user behavior or frequently misunderstood terms.

This innovative use of AI and SAP BTP’s lesser-known components earned PwC South Africa first place at the inaugural SAP BTP Hackathon, hosted by the African SAP User Group (AFSUG) during the SAPHILA 2025 conference. Out of 18 teams from across the continent, three finalists, including Bell Equipment and Debswana Diamond Company, were selected to present their real-world use cases. The final vote came from the SAPHILA audience, who awarded PwC’s solution top honors.

The hackathon was more than a competition; it was a collaborative experience. Over eight weeks, participants received coaching and technical support from SAP experts, guiding them through ideation, design, and deployment on SAP BTP. According to Olaf Winkler from SAP’s BTP product management team, the initiative aimed to help customers go beyond surface-level demos and truly unlock the power of the platform.

Amanda Gibbs, CEO of AFSUG, emphasized the significance of PwC’s achievement: “The LegalEase project exemplifies what’s possible when innovation meets purpose. PwC South Africa demonstrated how technology can be used to improve access, clarity, and trust, especially in areas often seen as opaque and inaccessible.”

For PwC, the win affirms their broader commitment to human-centered innovation. LegalEase is a proof point that advanced technology can be applied thoughtfully to improve everyday experiences, empower users, and unlock new value across sectors.