The Future of Procurement: Highlights from the Ardent Partners Agentic AI Report

Artificial intelligence has been steadily transforming procurement for more than a decade, progressing from brittle rule-based automations to today’s reasoning models and co-pilots. But a fresh inflection point has arrived: agentic AI—autonomous, goal-driven software agents that don’t just recommend the next step; they plan, execute, and learn across entire workflows. For Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) navigating a “do more with less” reality, this shift isn’t just another tech upgrade. It’s the foundation of autonomous procurement and a decisive lever for resilience, agility, and value creation over the next 24 months.

According to new research from Ardent Partners, 40% of CPOs already use AI in some form, and another 49% plan to adopt it by early 2026—momentum rarely seen in enterprise tech adoption. Notably, 73% expect AI’s impact to be significant or transformational within two to three years. What makes agentic AI distinct—and especially relevant to procurement leaders now—is its proactive, outcome-oriented design that closely mirrors how skilled buyers work in real life.

What Exactly is Agentic AI?

Agentic AI is an AI architecture built around autonomous agents that pursue defined business goals, orchestrate multi-step processes, and adapt to changing conditions with minimal human supervision. Unlike rule-based systems (which rely on static scripts) or co-pilot models (which are helpful but fundamentally reactive to user prompts), an agent:

• Interprets objectives provided through intake or policy,
• Designs a plan that decomposes the goal into tasks,
• Executes across tools and systems with governance,
• Learns from outcomes to continuously improve.

In procurement terms, these agents behave more like virtual category managers than smart chat assistants: they evaluate spend and market data, choose sourcing strategies, coordinate with stakeholders, negotiate with suppliers, and document every decision along the way.

Bottom line: Co-pilots answer questions; agents deliver outcomes—a pivotal difference for cycle-time, compliance, and value capture.

The Agentic AI Lifecycle (and why it matters)

Ardent Partners describes a four-stage agentic lifecycle that maps neatly to procurement work: Perceive → Reason → Act → Learn.

• Perceive – The agent ingests structured and unstructured data (e.g., historical spend, supplier performance, intake requests, market signals) to contextualize the objective—such as sourcing a new category or renegotiating a contract.
• Reason – Using an LLM-centric planner and long-term memory, the agent decomposes the goal into subtasks—data analysis, supplier discovery, RFP drafting, negotiation tactics, compliance checks—and orchestrates a dynamic, multi-step plan.
• Act – The agent executes through tools and integrations (e.g., S2P modules, email, CLM systems), logs actions for auditability, and seeks human approval where required.
• Learn – With reinforcement learning and feedback loops, the agent improves its playbooks, negotiation strategies, and risk models over time—becoming more accurate and effective with each cycle.

For procurement leaders, this lifecycle is powerful because it operationalizes continuous improvement—not as an annual transformation program, but as a built-in property of the system.

Why Agentic AI is a Game-Changer for Procurement

1) From decision support to autonomous execution

Traditional AI and co-pilots accelerate analysis; agentic AI executes the process. That means fewer handoffs, shorter cycle times, and consistent adherence to policy—especially in tail-spend sourcing, low-value RFQs, and intake orchestration.

Explore: Unlock The Hackett Group 2025 Tail Spend Management Study

2) Scale without linear headcount growth

CPOs rank productivity (80%), decision-making (49%), and efficiency gains (40%) as the top objectives for AI—areas where agentic automation directly moves the needle. By absorbing repetitive work, agents free teams to focus on supplier partnerships, category strategies, and innovation.

3) Better, faster decisions—consistently

Agents synthesize more data than humans can continuously monitor (e.g., live pricing, risk signals, contract clauses) and surface the right action in the right moment. The result: improved compliance, fewer errors, and more consistent outcomes across categories and regions.

4) Immediate value in targeted use cases

You don’t need a moonshot to start. Early wins are readily available in autonomous negotiation, guided buying / intake, contract term review, and supply risk monitoring.

Where to deploy agentic AI first

1) Autonomous Negotiation Agents (ANAs)

ANAs handle well-scoped negotiations (think tail spend or tactical buys) within policy guardrails—engaging suppliers, iterating offers, and converging on the best scenario without constant human guidance. This transforms spot buys from inbox-clogging back-and-forth into a continuous, automated negotiation stream.

Explore: Zycus’ Merlin Agentic Platform and Autonomous Negotiation

2) Guided Buying & Intake Orchestration

Agentic intake routes requests, recommends preferred suppliers, validates budgets and categories, and triggers approvals—dramatically reducing friction for business stakeholders while ensuring policy compliance end-to-end.

Explore Zycus’ Source-to-Pay (S2P) Suite and Procure-to-Pay (P2P) solutions

Explore Hackett’s Intelligent Intake Management – From Bolt-On To Built-In: The Key to Faster, Smarter Decision-Making

3) Contract Term Review & Clause Extraction

Agent’s parse agreements, flag risky or non-standard language, and recommend compliant alternatives. Humans still make final legal calls, but throughput and consistency increase significantly.

Explore Zycus’ Contract Management (CLM) and Merlin Contract Agent

4) Supply Risk Monitoring & Response

Agents watch supplier health, market events, ESG indicators, and geo-political signals—aggregating risk and proposing mitigations so the team focuses on decisions rather than manual data hunting.

Explore Zycus’ Supplier Risk & Performance solutions.

Tip: Start where manual effort is high and variance is costly—tail-spend negotiations, intake bottlenecks, and contract review often deliver the fastest ROI.

Overcoming Adoption Barriers (and how to de-risk rollout)

Even the best agent needs the right environment to succeed. CPOs cite limited budget (53%), data quality and access (47%), and skills gaps (36%) as top obstacles to scaling AI. Practical steps:

• Lead with a business case tied to time-to-value. Anchor your first agent to measurable outcomes (e.g., % cycle-time reduction, savings captured in tail spend, compliance lift).
• Harden your data foundation. Standardize vendor masters, normalize categories, and connect spend data; agents improve markedly when fed consistent inputs.
• Establish autonomy guardrails. Define which actions the agent can take unassisted vs. those requiring human approval—then expand autonomy as trust grows.
• Upskill the team. Shift practitioners from task executors to process owners and supervisors who set objectives, validate outcomes, and coach the agent over time.

For organizations looking to accelerate time-to-value, pairing agents with an integrated S2P platform further reduces friction. Ardent Partners notes that standalone agents often lack data breadth and cross-module orchestration, while embedded agents leverage common data models, unified UX, and coordinated release cycles for consistent execution at scale.

Explore Zycus’ Source-to-Pay (S2P) Suite and the Merlin Agentic Platform

 Governance, Risk, and Trust by Design

Agentic AI must be auditable. Every action—policy validation, supplier outreach, negotiation round, contract edit—should be logged with rationale and outcome. Ardent’s lifecycle emphasizes transparent execution and learning loops, enabling procurement to prove compliance while improving results. Pair this with:

• Clear approval matrices (what the agent can finalize vs. recommend),
• Ethical and data-privacy controls in line with enterprise policy,
• Regular performance reviews (see measurement framework below).

This governance posture builds trust among legal, finance, and business stakeholders—essential for expanding autonomy.

Measuring Value (so your agents get a bigger mandate)

What gets measured gets scaled. Ardent Partners recommends tracking operational and qualitative metrics to capture agentic value end-to-end.

Operational KPIs

• Cycle-time reduction (intake-to-PO, RFx lead times, CLM time-to-signature)
• Throughput increases (events per FTE, contract reviews per month)
• Savings captured (especially in tail spend)
• Compliance uplift (preferred supplier and contract-rate adherence)
• Error reduction (coding, approvals, clause deviations)

Qualitative KPIs

• Stakeholder satisfaction (NPS for business requesters)
• Autonomy tolerance (how far the org is comfortable letting the agent run)
• Trust in agent recommendations (adoption rates, override frequency)

Start by establishing pre-deployment baselines, then run periodic comparisons to quantify improvements and refine autonomy levels over time.

• Explore: Zycus’ Procure-to-Pay, Strategic Sourcing, Contract Management, and AP Automation solution pages at zycus.com for program-level KPI frameworks you can adapt.

Building your Roadmap (90-, 180-, and 365-day Horizons)

First 90 days

• Pick 1–2 high-leverage use cases (e.g., ANAs for tail spend + agentic intake).
• Integrate the agent with your S2P data sources, clean critical masters.
• Define autonomy guardrails, audit logging, and approval rules.
• Launch pilot; track operational baselines and stakeholder sentiment.

Next 180 days

• Expand to contract review and supplier risk monitoring.
• Calibrate agent playbooks using real outcomes (learning stage).
• Increase autonomy where performance meets thresholds.
• Standardize success metrics across categories/regions.

Within 12 months

• Move from isolated wins to a coordinated agentic fabric across sourcing, P2P, CLM, and SRM—ideally within an integrated platform for maximum context and control.
• Institutionalize governance, training, and continuous improvement rituals.
• Explore: Source-to-Pay, Merlin Agentic Platform, and Supplier Risk solutions at zycus.com for reference architectures and maturity models.

Explore: Zycus Named a Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide AI-Enabled for Source-to- Pay 2025 Vendor Assessment Applications

Why now?

Two forces are converging: executive urgency and technology readiness. CPOs feel competitive pressure and FOMO, and many now expect AI to materially reshape procurement in the near term.

Meanwhile, agentic methods have matured from narrow, prompt-driven tools into robust outcome engines capable of planning, execution, and self-improvement across real procurement processes.

Organizations that start small, measure rigorously, and scale deliberately will convert AI enthusiasm into durable advantage—shorter cycles, higher compliance, better savings, and happier stakeholders.

Take the next step with Zycus

Zycus has invested heavily in agentic capabilities purpose-built for procurement, with autonomous agents that orchestrate intake, negotiations, contracting, AP, and supplier risk—within an integrated Source-to-Pay platform. If you’re planning your first (or next) agentic deployment:

• Visit zycus.com to explore:
  • Merlin Agentic Platform (agent orchestration across S2P),
  • Strategic Sourcing & Autonomous Negotiation,
  • Procure-to-Pay and AP Automation,
  • Contract Management (CLM),
  • Supplier Risk & Performance.

These pages include product deep dives, deployment patterns, and KPI frameworks that complement the research insights above.

Agentic AI is not a distant vision—it’s a practical path to autonomous procurement that is already delivering value in targeted use cases today. By aligning to the Perceive→Reason→Act→Learn lifecycle, embedding governance, and measuring what matters, you’ll move beyond AI that merely assists to AI that accomplishes. In the process, procurement evolves from a reactive service function to a proactive, decision-making force shaping enterprise performance for years to come

Read Ardent Partner’s Report on The Rise of Agentic AI in Procurement

Related Reads:

1. Whitepaper: Beyond GenAI: The Dawn of Agentic AI
2. From Co-Pilots to Commanders: How Agentic AI is Redefining Procurement Transformation
3. Harnessing Agentic AI in Source-to-Pay: A New Era of Procurement Efficiency
4. Solution: Agentic AI for Strategic Sourcing
5. Revolutionizing Procurement: Agentic AI-Driven Autonomous Purchase Orders & Automation