We recently had the pleasure of attending the Agentic AI in Procurement conference in London, where we experienced a day of interaction, brainstorming, live demos and strategic planning with some of the professions most innovative thinkers.
This year’s Agentic AI in Procurement conference built on organiser KonnectHouse’s inaugural event in London last year. It attracted a broad range of attendees including innovative procurement thinkers, plus leading minds from startups and tech firms, alongside digital specialists at the forefront of AI. It went beyond theory to explore how real organisations are deploying agentic AI solutions to deliver measurable outcomes, including faster cycle times, stronger supplier performance, improved resilience and greater strategic capacity for procurement teams.
KonnectHouse are a boutique events company that curate intimate events, guided by a strong sense of purpose. It’s no surprise then that they’d recruited a focused roster of speakers, meaning attendees found it easy to connect with likeminded professionals, which helped inspire some great ideas and foster new relationships.
Held at Convene 22 Bishopsgate, centrally located within one of London’s most famous skyscrapers, the location was a fitting setting. As the second-tallest building in the city it’s already an iconic part of the evolving skyline, with design influence from London Liveries as well as the surrounding historic architecture, juxtaposing the old and the new.
Hosted by Madeleine Joubert, CEO and Founder of AI Augmented Consulting, this year’s event featured a new format designed to maximise interaction, allowing guests to investigate how this fundamental shift in the world of procurement will impact their work, with presentations, discussion panels, workshops and live demos.
Sessions covered an array of topics, such as outcome‑driven agentic AI use cases currently deployed across sourcing, contracting, supplier management and analytics; the rise of AI employees, including how digital agents are taking on repeatable and decision‑intensive work and what this means for roles, governance and capability; and next‑generation procurement operating models, with agentic workflows operating across functions and enterprise boundaries. Each session featured clear examples of how value is defined and measured, moving beyond activity metrics to real business impact.
In his keynote address, Procurement at an Inflection Point, Patrick Foelck, Head of Strategy & Solutions Procurement at Roche, argued that unless we step outside the traditional realms of procurement, we won’t generate sufficient impact as “if we just continue and use technology to get marginally better, we won’t be sitting here soon”.
He also warned about the risks of externalising procurement and how we can resist calls to do so by “focusing on what the business really wants and needs. Focus on better decisions and extend what we do. Savings are nice, but the business actually needs profit and loss, reduced costs, security of supply, risk management, sustainability and ultimately, better procurement”.
Foelck believes the procurement team of the future will need to be flexible and agile, utilising technology to make the best use of the available resources, working in tandem with agentic AI. This will involve upskilling teams and engaging with them carefully to “explain why we’re doing this, how to use it, and where we’re going, whilst connecting it to an overall strategy”. Get this right and you can help minimise worry and fear among staff.
Ultimately, he urges us to “Get started. That’s my main message. Think about this strategically. Don’t think about this in silos. Have a plan and sell it. Otherwise, it’ll be a downward spiral. Having a growth strategy is key.”
The main stage discussion, Operating Models, Headcount and Change Management, featured an A‑list panel with Milind Tailor, former Global Head of Resale Products and Services Procurement at Diebold Nixdorf; Jaime Paiva, Procurement Excellence, formerly Zurich; Bola Naomi Soko, former Commercial Manager at the Bank of England; and Jason Powell, Managing Director of the Enterprise Transformation Office at Zip.
A lively discussion unpacked what is and isn’t working today, focusing on technical gaps, skills gaps and trust gaps. While it was acknowledged that many organisations already have a significant level of technical knowledge “the major challenge is the rate at which the whole technology is changing is too fast for organisations to absorb…
…And I think that’s what is creating a big gap in terms of what organisations can absorb, integrate and deploy, versus the rate at which the technology itself is changing”, according to Tailor.
From the perspective of skills, AI brings unique challenges, according to Soko, including a concern that “if we automate all the basic administrative tasks with AI, it’s going to leave all the hard strategic work for us to do. So, an entry level role will probably not involve basic work, but actually start doing some strategic work, be it supervised. And people that currently do administrative work are going to be tasked with doing strategic work as well. Organisation charts are likely going to be flatter because we’re all going to be doing strategic work. And it’s not sustainable to have that level of concentration for a very long time”.
On the issue of trust, the panel considered what a reasonable aim for AI looks like. Do we expect perfection, or do we accept a degree of error? And if so, how much? Powell thinks, “There’s no one right answer and every company is going to view it a little bit differently. I think it also depends on your industry and how regulated you are or where you’re using it.”
Later in the day Janet Lung Standing, Board Advisor and former CPO, led a discussion with Seb Butt, Vice President, Specright and Rob Turner, Global Director, Procurement & Supply Chain, DoorDash on the subject of Board Expectations. The panel explored the topic in detail, with Lung Standing noting that “boards want AI adoption to make their business more profitable and create long-term value. Procurement hasn’t enjoyed such a high profile before and there’s an opportunity for AI adoption in procurement to deliver real outcomes that matters to the enterprise.”
In terms of how that looks in more practical terms, Rob Turner says, “We’ve got to think about how we’re going to deploy it, but we’ve also got to think about planning way ahead so that we’re almost leapfrogging capability, with our mind on our roadmap so we’re really clear on the problems we’re trying to solve.”
Additionally, Seb Butt believes, “The easiest path to get budget is always going to be aligning yourself to a strategic initiative that the organisation is already invested in. And if you don’t, you’re probably looking at a functional rather than a strategic initiative, which isn’t going to move the business needle.”
Alongside the wide array of other opportunities on offer at the event, these sessions provided a unique insight into the future of procurement. Agentic AI is sure to be a hot topic for some time though, with new opportunities arising and adoption rates increasing, so next year’s follow up event is sure to be an essential date on many procurement professionals’ calendars.
For information about upcoming KonnectHouse events, visit their website.