This is an amazing value-add!
The article says the acquired company was already a partner. It isn’t clear from reading it how the existing relationship worked exactly but based on the Liveoak website (below) you could use docusign from inside their video collaboration tool.
The announcement of the acquisition coincided with DocuSign announcing a new product called DocuSign Notary.
The way it works, from what I have read and seen on their site, is: You start a video conference that allows you to add documents that everyone can see and interact with live (like a Zoom screenshare but deeper). This allows a Notary (person) to watch you click to sign digitally. They then also digitally sign they witnessed your signature. The whole session’s activity is stored for verification as well.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/docusign-acquires-liveoak-tec…
The deal made sense given that the two companies had a partnership already. Liveoak brings together live video, collaboration tooling and identity verification that enables parties to get notarized approval as though you were sitting at the desk in front of the notary.
Typically, you might get a document that requires your signature. Without electronic signature, you would need to print it, sign the document, scan it and return it. If it requires a notary, you would need to sign it in the notary’s presence, which requires an in-person visit. All of this can be streamlined with an online workflow, which DocuSign is providing with this acquisition.
This is how Liveoak describes what they do on their website:
https://www.liveoak.net/
The Liveoak cloud platform seamlessly integrates best-in-class video conferencing, screen-sharing and data/ID capture with forms collaboration and e-signature capabilities that let your teams deliver white-glove service to your customers. To see an example of Liveoak in action, watch this short video: https://www.liveoak.net/liveoak-docusign-video-demo/
The video is a Liveoak/Docusign Video Demo