AI Agents are coming to Procurement. But without Orchestration, they’ll simply be very fast at making the same old mess. I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about the promise of "Agentic AI"—those autonomous entities capable of sensing risk and sourcing suppliers in real-time. But there is a hard truth we need to address: an agent is only as effective as the environment in which it operates. I’m at Zip Forward in London today, and the theme "Agents of Change" feels spot on. For AI to move beyond the hype and into genuine enterprise application, it requires a robust orchestration layer. You simply cannot deploy an autonomous agent into a fragmented, manual process and expect a strategic result. Orchestration provides the "digital rails" AI needs to actually work: 1️⃣ Contextual Data: Agents need a real-time view of the truth across the intake lifecycle, not departmental silos. 2️⃣ Embedded Governance: We can empower agents to act whilst maintaining the guardrails necessary for the enterprise. 3️⃣ Human-Centricity: Orchestration lets AI handle the "heavy lifting," whilst elevating our roles to be truly strategic. By putting data at the head centre of the process, we finally position Procurement at the very heart of business transformation. If you’re here at the event, what’s the one process you think is most ready for an AI agent to take over? #ZipForward #AgenticAI #ProcurementTech #DigitalTransformation #Orchestration #SupplyChain #Innovation #Leadership
James B. will you be coming to Coupa Inspire this year? It will be hitting on many of these points... and addressing some of the issues that customers of Zip or others are encountering post deployment. I'm sure it'd be insightful for you - and curious to get your reaction & feedback!
That’s a fair point, speed without structure just accelerates the same inefficiencies James. Without orchestration, agents act in fragments, with it, they start contributing to real decisions.
Orchestration is the missing piece in most AI conversations.