STEVE BRADBURN
AI IN PROCUREMENT
STEVE BRADBURN
TITLE: SENIOR MANAGER OF SOLUTION CONSULTING
COMPANY: CONGA
INDUSTRY: SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
LOCATION: UK
Steve is Senior Manager of Solution Consulting at Conga. He works with enterprise organisations to help modernise how they manage contracts and commercial processes, particularly across procurement, legal and finance teams.
For procurement teams, a lot of negotiation time isn’ t spent in the discussion itself; instead, it is spent finding the right clause, comparing previous agreements, checking fallback positions, reviewing risk and chasing approvals.
Steve Bradburn, Senior Manager, Solution Consulting at Conga, says:“ That friction is a real commercial issue. Conga’ s Commercial Operations Maturity Report 2026 found that 93 % of companies say deals struggle to move smoothly across sales, legal, finance, pricing and IT. That shows how quickly disconnected processes can affect business performance.
“ This is where AI can help, by taking the heavy lifting.”
Embedding AI into contract negotiations, procurement functions can automate the process of flagging clause deviations, compare proposed terms against historic contracts, surface compliance risks and suggest approved alternative language.
This gives teams a clearer view of what is negotiable, what needs escalation and where the business may be exposed.
Hannah Salvage, Head of Portfolio Lifecycle Management Services at SCC is also seeing AI playing an increasingly important role in routine negotiations, particularly where pricing structures are standardised, requirements are well-defined, and there is limited scope for commercial variation.
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