SpendHQ’ s October 2025 investment in Sligo AI addresses this directly – adding“ an agentic player on top of our insights” to“ sift through the noise, prioritise, decide what’ s the most impactful, logical course of action”.
In every case, AI is the superstructure; data readiness is the foundation.
Always-on expertise over one-off tools A second convergence emerges: the move from static analytics to proactive, configurable intelligence. Baber highlights AI that“ will sense it. It’ ll alert you for what has happened and recommend an action to take.
And in many cases, if the action doesn’ t require a serious decision, it’ ll automatically take the action.”
This powers role-specific assistants:“ There’ s a sourcing assistant, there’ s a category manager assistant, there’ s a buying assistant, there’ s an invoicing assistant. And underneath that, there are specific agents that do specific work.”
Pierre frames agents differently:“ I like to think of agents as an intern – you’ ll get an intern from the best schools, but until you’ ve taught them everything, you’ ve given them instruction, they’ re useless. But the minute you train them properly, they may become the next rockstar in your team.”
110 January 2026