Built as the first global, research-anchored gathering dedicated to agentic AI in procurement, the summit drew more than 1,500 senior procurement leaders from over 50 countries across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC – and gave the function its sharpest frame yet for what to own, what to delegate, and what to design with intent.
Every session, including the founder’s keynote, analyst premieres, partner conversations, and live Merlin platform walkthroughs, is now available on demand via the Zycus summit hub, the Zycus LinkedIn page, and the Zycus YouTube channel.
Two research premieres that reframe the conversation
The summit unveiled two major studies from two of the most cited names in the analyst community. Both are now in the hands of practitioners worldwide:
Forrester – Don’t Delegate AI. Presented by Jeffrey Rajamani, Senior Analyst, Forrester, the report’s argument is uncompromising: procurement’s AI strategy is not an IT project, and it is not a vendor’s job. The CPO has to own it – set the direction, define the guardrails, and own the outcomes.
The Hackett Group – Agentic AI in Procurement Adoption Index 2026. Presented by Chris Sawchuk, Principal Analyst, The Hackett Group, drawing on more than 250 global CPO conversations, this is the cleanest read yet on where procurement actually sits on the agentic AI curve – what’s working, what’s stuck, and how far the typical organisation still has to travel from pilot to enterprise scale.
One data point cut through the rest of the agenda: 58% of procurement leaders expect agentic AI to make a material dent on their organisations within twelve months — yet the bulk of work remains stranded in pilot mode, never quite breaking through to enterprise-wide deployment. That single tension shaped much of the day’s discussion, with CPOs openly contesting where ownership of the AI agenda must live — and what gets lost when it lives elsewhere.
A keynote on designed autonomy
The summit’s anchor was a keynote from Aatish Dedhia, Founder and CEO of Zycus, who reframed agentic AI as something larger than the next wave of automation.
His message – that agentic AI represents a structural change in how procurement work is orchestrated, governed, and trusted, rather than a faster version of yesterday’s automation – set the tone for the analyst and practitioner sessions that followed.
Strategy met execution on the same stage
The summit didn’t stop at the whiteboard. Attendees were taken inside live, production-grade demonstrations of the Zycus Merlin Agentic AI Platform, showcasing goal-driven agents already operating inside enterprise procurement workflows:
· Autonomous Negotiation Agent (ANA) – running supplier negotiations end to end with minimal human touch.
· Merlin Intake – orchestrating intake-to-pay across the full procurement lifecycle, guided by AI.
· Merlin Analytics – surfacing spend intelligence at enterprise scale.
The agenda was deliberately built to mirror the full stack required to move from idea to operating reality:
· Analyst sessions from Forrester and The Hackett Group, grounding strategy in evidence.
· Consulting perspectives from EY and IBM on governance, readiness, and operating-model design.
· Practitioner-led conversations on the unglamorous work of moving from pilot to production without losing control or accountability.
Attendees scored the event 4.5 out of 5 overall, calling out the practical orientation of the sessions and the relevance of the live demonstrations to real procurement problems.
Why it mattered
This wasn’t another AI conference. The Agentic AI Procurement Summit 2026 was structured as a decision forum for procurement leaders working through three questions:
· How does our agentic AI maturity compare to global peers?
· Which AI decisions cannot leave the CPO’s desk?
· How do we close the gap between experimentation and enterprise impact?
With procurement caught between assisted automation and genuine autonomy, the summit offered clarity on three fronts — what to own, what to delegate, and what to design deliberately. The conversations it sparked are expected to shape boardroom AI agendas across procurement functions in the year ahead.
Access the research and on-demand sessions
The Forrester Don’t Delegate AI report, The Hackett Group’s Agentic AI in Procurement Adoption Index 2026, and the full library of session recordings are available now:
· Zycus Agentic AI Procurement Summit on-demand page: https://www.zycus.com/campaigns/agentic-ai-procurement-summit-2026-on-demand/?utm_source=cpostrategy&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=aps_2026
· Zycus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zycus
· Zycus on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Zycus
Frequently asked questions
What was the Agentic AI Procurement Summit 2026? A virtual global forum hosted by Zycus on May 13, 2026, focused exclusively on how autonomous AI should be designed, governed, and scaled by procurement leaders. It brought together more than 1,500 procurement leaders from over 50 countries across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.
Who hosted it? Zycus – the global pioneer of Agentic AI in procurement and creator of the Merlin Agentic AI Platform.
Which research reports were released? Forrester’s Don’t Delegate AI, which argues that procurement’s AI agenda must sit with the CPO; and The Hackett Group’s Agentic AI in Procurement Adoption Index 2026, drawn from interviews with more than 250 global CPOs.
What is the Merlin Agentic AI Platform? Zycus’s unified agentic AI platform for procurement, featuring goal-driven autonomous agents including Merlin Intake (intake-to-pay orchestration), the Autonomous Negotiation Agent (ANA) for supplier negotiations, and Merlin Analytics for spend intelligence.
Where can I watch the replays? Recordings, keynotes, and live demonstrations are available via Zycus Agentic AI Procurement Summit on-demand page, the official Zycus LinkedIn page, and the Zycus YouTube channel.
What does Intake-to-Outcomes mean? Intake-to-Outcomes (I2O) is Zycus’s category framing – a step beyond traditional Source-to-Pay (S2P). It describes a unified platform that combines AI-guided intake, an agentic execution layer, and an integrated S2P core, focused on measurable business outcomes rather than transactions.
About Zycus
Zycus is the global pioneer of agentic AI in procurement, redefining the category from Source-to-Pay (S2P) to Intake-to-Outcomes (I2O). Its unified platform combines AI-guided intake, an agentic execution layer, and a deeply integrated S2P core to deliver measurable business outcomes – not just transactions.
At the heart of the platform is the Merlin Agentic AI Platform, featuring autonomous, goal-driven agents such as Merlin Intake, the Autonomous Negotiation Agent (ANA), and Merlin Analytics.
Zycus is consistently recognised as a market leader across Gartner®, Forrester™, IDC, and Gartner Peer Insights, and is trusted by enterprise procurement leaders worldwide.