CONTRACT MANAGEMENT
McKinsey also reports that by embracing AI, procurement teams could be 25 to 40 % more efficient. According to Deloitte’ s Global CPO Study, procurement executives value enhanced decision-making and improved productivity as the top benefits.
“ An AI-enabled procurement system can ingest a request for a speciality forklift rental on a manufacturing site, shortlist a pre-vetted group of suppliers who have the appropriate certifications and product in inventory, recommend and execute a purchase order to the selected supplier. Not in weeks, in minutes,” adds Shaz.
Real-world results are already showcasing this. Bristol Myers Squibb, after appointing a new Chief Purchasing Officer with a mandate to modernise procurement, used an agentic AI sourcing platform to cut RFP completion time to 27 days while increasing RFP throughput tenfold. AstraZeneca has been rolling out AI agents across its own procurement operations, recently sharing lessons from the process at Coupa’ s Inspire 2026 conference.
“ Most organisations are not struggling with procurement strategy; they are struggling with execution capacity,” said Kaspar Korjus, Co-Founder and CEO of Pactum.“ With AstraZeneca, we are demonstrating a real-world case study where autonomous AI agents have been activated to operate within clear policy enforcement to deliver outcomes that generate tangible business impacts.”
Who’ s liable when the AI gets it wrong? As AI agents take on more autonomous roles in sourcing and contract execution, procurement is entering what Shaz calls an era of agentic procurement and with it, an unresolved legal question. If an autonomous AI agent misinterprets data and signs off on a legally non-compliant supplier, who is legally at fault? The company, the procurement team or the software vendor?
“ Even the best vendors and hyper-scalers will unknowingly introduce trap doors where their large language models will escape and infiltrate other systems,” says Shaz.
“ The enactment of strict legal safeguards must be weighed against organisationally acceptable risk tolerance thresholds to execute business at speed”
Shaz Khan CEO & Co-Founder Vroozi