Spend Matters Agentic AI Insights for Procurement Leaders

Listen to this blog

Introduction

Procurement leaders have evaluated technology for years through a simple lens:
“Will this help us deliver measurable value?”

Artificial intelligence has long promised productivity, but early AI rarely lived up to the hype. Most solutions operated as copilots, summarizing data, suggesting next steps, or automating small tasks.

Today, a new category of capability has emerged that fundamentally changes how procurement operations run: Agentic AI.

Agentic AI does not just analyze or recommend. It acts, reasons, orchestrates, and executes.
The recent Spend Matters’ highlights how agentic systems are already driving real procurement transformation across intake, sourcing, contracting, supplier management, risk, payments, and analytics.

This article explores what Agentic AI can do today, how it differs from traditional automation, and critically, how Zycus’ Merlin Agentic Platform already delivers these capabilities in production environments.

Agentic AI vs. Traditional Automation: Why It Matters

The term “agent” is often misused to describe any workflow with AI sprinkled on top. But true Agentic AI is fundamentally different.

Where traditional systems follow static workflows, an agent determines how to achieve an outcome dynamically:

interpreting intent
assessing enterprise and process context
selecting the right tools or systems
coordinating with other agents
adapting to new data
learning from feedback

Traditional automation completes tasks.
Agentic automation delivers outcomes.

With volatile markets, growing supply bases, compliance pressure, and operational complexity, adaptability is now a strategic requirement. That’s why Agentic AI is quickly becoming the next must-have layer of procurement infrastructure.

What Agentic AI Can Do Today—and How Zycus Delivers It

Below are the eight most mature use cases highlighted in the report, combined with real examples of how Zycus solves each one through the Merlin Agentic Platform and the Zycus Source-to-Pay Suite.

1. Intelligent Intake & Purchase Request Automation

What Agentic AI Can Do

An intake agent can already:

interpret requests from email/chat/forms
Classify requests and apply policy automatically
Check budgets and preferred suppliers
gather missing data
route or auto-approve based on rules and context

How Zycus Delivers It

Zycus’ Merlin Intake provides the industry’s most advanced agentic intake layer.

Handles conversational intake from Teams, Slack, and chat.
Auto-classifies requests (e.g., “software purchase,” “marketing services”).
Checks existing contracts and budget limits.
Auto-routes or auto-approves compliant requests.
Provides analytics to eliminate bottlenecks.

Example:
A user submits “Need 10 Zoom licenses” via chat.
Merlin Intake identifies it as a software request, checks if Zoom is under an EA, applies default terms, confirms budget, and auto-approves the request—zero manual input required.

Learn more: Zycus’ Intake Management

3. Autonomous Sourcing & Negotiation

What Agentic AI Can Do

Sourcing agents can now:

analyze markets and supplier data
launch RFx events autonomously
Evaluate bids against benchmarks
negotiate price improvements
trigger contract creation upon thresholds

How Zycus Delivers It

Zycus’ Merlin Autonomous Sourcing & Autonomous Negotiation Agent (ANA) is one of the few agentic sourcing systems running live with enterprise customers.

Issue RFQs automatically for tail and tactical sourcing.
Benchmark prices using internal and external data.
Runs autonomous negotiations to improve pricing.
Cuts sourcing cycle times by up to 70% (as seen with Sirva).

Example:
For recurring tail-spend categories (e.g., printed materials), Zycus ANA automatically launches sourcing events, compares supplier quotes to benchmarks, negotiates better pricing, and triggers contract workflows—freeing buyers from repetitive events.

See autonomous sourcingme in action

4. Supplier Discovery & Onboarding

What Agentic AI Can Do

Discovery and onboarding agents can:

search global supplier networks
Identify sustainable/diverse/emerging suppliers
auto-populate supplier profiles
validate certificates and compliance
onboard into ERP systems

How Zycus Delivers It

Zycus’ Supplier Management with Merlin AI provides agentic supplier discovery and onboarding.

Access to a 2M+ supplier network.
AI-verified supplier profiles with auto-curated data.
Automated onboarding workflows with form dispatch, validation, and approval.
ESG, compliance, and risk checks built in.

Example:
For a packaging category refresh, Merlin discovers environmentally certified suppliers, validates their compliance documents, collects onboarding forms automatically, and pushes approved suppliers into the ERP, accelerating supplier expansion without added workload.

Explore Zycus’ Supplier Management Software

5. Contract Compliance & Negotiation Optimization

What Agentic AI Can Do

Contract agents already:

extract metadata and redlines
benchmark clause language
detect risks or deviations
propose negotiation strategies
automate renewal workflows

How Zycus Delivers It

Zycus’ Merlin for Contracts provides:

Automated clause extraction and comparison.
AI-based risk scoring for redlines.
Contract metadata generation.
Renewal alerts and negotiation recommendations.
Integration into sourcing and supplier workflows.

Example:
A services contract nearing expiration is analyzed by Merlin: unfavorable clauses are flagged, better internal precedents are identified, and the system suggests negotiation goals—making renewals smarter and faster.

Explore Zycus’ contract intelligence

6. Real-Time Supplier Risk Monitoring

What Agentic AI Can Do

Risk agents monitor:

sanctions lists
financial risk indicators
ESG performance
logistics disruptions
global news alerts

And take preventive action.

How Zycus Delivers It

Zycus’ Merlin Supplier Risk continuously monitors third-party risk with:

automated financial and ESG scoring
real-time news and compliance alerts
supplier performance trends
automated escalation workflows

Example:
If a critical supplier experiences a financial event, Merlin auto-flags the risk, updates the scorecard, alerts procurement, and suggests alternates—reducing the impact of disruptions.

Explore Zycus’ Merlin Risk Radar

7. Spend Analytics & Optimization

What Agentic AI Can Do

Analytics agents don’t just report data; they act on it:

identify price anomalies
detect off-contract spend
find consolidation opportunities
forecast demand
trigger sourcing or compliance workflows

How Zycus Delivers It

Zycus Merlin Analytics combines deep intelligence with action-taking agents:

Automated anomaly detection.
Savings-opportunity identification.
Off-contract spend elimination through alerts and workflows.
Forecasting is tied to requisition and contract data.

Example:
Merlin detects a 12% price spike in a chemical category, flags it against benchmarks, and auto-triggers a sourcing event—capturing value that dashboards alone would miss.

Learn more about analytics: Merlin Analytics Demo | AI-Powered Procurement Analysis

8. Tail Spend Automation

What Agentic AI Can Do

Agents resolve tail-spend challenges:

heavy manual effort
inconsistent compliance
decentralized buying

They automate validations, supplier selection, PO generation, and approvals.

How Zycus Delivers It

Tail spend automation is achieved by combining:

Merlin Intake (auto-classifies requests + guides users)
Merlin eProcurement (“touchless buying”)
Autonomous Sourcing/Negotiation

Together they:

Auto-route low-value purchases
Match requests to catalog/contract suppliers
Auto-generate POs
Enforce compliance at the intake stage

Explore Zycus eProcurement

9. Procure-to-Pay (P2P) Exception Handling

What Agentic AI Can Do

Agents resolve:

invoice mismatches
incorrect quantities
missing receipts
duplicates

By referencing patterns, history, and context.

How Zycus Delivers It

Zycus’ AP Smart Desk + Merlin Agentic Platform automates P2P exceptions through:

intelligent invoice matching
AI-based discrepancy resolution
proactive duplicate detection
auto-routing to the correct stakeholder for unresolved cases

Example:
An invoice arrives with a quantity mismatch. Merlin cross-checks PO, receipt data, and historical patterns; resolves it automatically or provides a recommended fix, reducing AP workload dramatically.

Explore Zycus’ AP automation Software

Why Agentic AI Is Emerging Now: The Orchestration Layer

The Agentic AI in Procurement: What it actually delivers today and What’s ahead report notes that frameworks like LangGraph, AutoGen, and CrewAI make multi-agent systems possible through:

shared memory
structured message-passing
multi-step planning
real-time reasoning
coordinated execution

Enterprise platforms like Zycus are now “agent-aware,” meaning procurement tools expose an intent-based API that agents can use to act autonomously.

This orchestration layer is what transforms AI from insights to execution.

Governance: Ensuring Agents Act Safely

As autonomy increases, governance becomes essential. The report stresses:

decision logging
confidence scoring
fallback rules
conflict resolution
human oversight

Zycus embeds governance directly inside the Merlin Orchestration Engine, ensuring safe, explainable, auditable agent behavior.

What This Means for Procurement Teams

By 2026–2030, procurement will operate as a hybrid model:

Humans set a strategy.
Agents execute operations.

Teams shift from transactional work to:

designing systems
governing agent behavior
validating AI outputs
managing exceptions
driving strategy

Procurement becomes more strategic—and significantly more efficient.

Why Enterprises Choose Zycus for Agentic AI

The Agentic AI in Procurement: What it actually delivers today and What’s ahead report identifies Zycus as a leading provider enabling agentic transformation across the entire Source-to-Pay lifecycle.

Zycus stands out because:

Agents are pre-built for every process, from intake to payments
All agents run under one unified platform
Enterprises avoid custom development or patchwork integrations
The entire flow embodies a single vision:
“From Intake to Outcomes.”

Zycus Named a LEADER in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide AI-Enabled S2P 2025 Vendor Assessment
Zycus recognized a Customers’ in the 2025 Gartner Peer Insights^TM “Voice of the Customer for Source-to-Pay Suites
Zycus Named a LEADER in the Forrester Wave^TM: Supplier Value Management Platforms

Conclusion

Agentic AI is not a future concept—it is today’s procurement operating model.
It can already reason, act autonomously, collaborate with other agents, and execute complex workflows across intake, sourcing, contracts, supplier management, risk, spend, and P2P.

Organizations adopting agentic systems early will lead in agility, efficiency, and enterprise value creation.

With platforms like Zycus Merlin Agentic, procurement teams are no longer just automating tasks—they are enabling autonomous execution across the entire S2P ecosystem.

Related Reads:

Webinars

Procurement Voices: Real S2P Journeys in the Agentic AI Era with DRB-HICOM Berhad and CEWA

Zycus

Zycus is a leader in Cognititive Procurement. A leading SaaS platform used by many large enterprises across the globe for enabling efficiency and effectiveness of the procurement function.