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Notary — tasks, one by one
The unit of analysis is the task, not the job title. Each one below carries its direction, whether the judgement rests on evidence or on platform inference, the reasoning, and what it does not establish.
Every task on this page#
Verifying identity and capacity
Being augmented✓ Evidence-backedChecking who each person is and whether they understand and freely agree to what they sign.
Identity checks are going digital, but the duty stays with the notary: Spain's law says the notary will verify the identity documents and may check them against government databases, and must refuse to act when the legal conditions are missing. No record found shows identity or capacity judged by a machine alone.
One country's rule; it does not measure how identity checks are done in practice or how often they fail.
Explaining and witnessing signatures
Still human-led✓ Evidence-backedReading or explaining the document to the parties and witnessing them sign, in person or by video where the law allows.
Remote signing is allowed but narrow and rare: Spain lets notaries authorise by video only a closed list of acts, not general powers of attorney, and in two years notaries authorised more than 12,700 acts by video against 14.69 million electronic deeds; Japan allows web meetings only when the notary judges them appropriate.
Two countries, and figures reported by the notaries' own body; video signing is a change of channel, not automation.
Drafting deeds (civil-law notaries)
Still human-led≈ Platform inferenceDrafting property sales, wills, company documents and other deeds so that they are valid and enforceable.
No record found shows AI drafting deeds in production. France's notaries began an 18-month partnership with an AI company in 2026, framed as learning and as keeping use within professional ethics; it reports no results yet.
The absence of a record and one pilot; it does not measure whether drafting tools are already used inside notarial offices.
Keeping registers and records
Automating✓ Evidence-backedKeeping the original deeds and registers, issuing copies and passing data to registries and authorities.
Record-keeping is moving into electronic registers by law, with machines handling the data: Spain requires every deed to be copied into an electronic register, and its notaries' AI system extracts data from the seven most common deed types at 96 percent accuracy with human control; Japan makes the original notarial deed electronic by default.
Two countries' laws and one notarial body's project; they do not show how much clerical work in notarial offices has changed.