Zycus and The Hackett Group Launch 2026 Agentic AI in Procurement Adoption Index
A new annual benchmark helps CPOs quantify readiness, prioritize investments, set risk thresholds, and benchmark ROI
Princeton, NJ— [3rd February’26] — Zycus today announced the release of The Hackett Group Agentic AI in Procurement Adoption Index — 2026 (Inaugural Edition), co-authored by The Hackett Group and Zycus, the first annual benchmark designed to help procurement leaders measure where they stand as Agentic AI reshapes the source-to-pay (S2P) landscape. Designed as a trusted, independent reference point for procurement executives, the Index will be published yearly to measure industry progress — and help organizations assess where they stand as the landscape changes.
Why this Index matters to CPOs now
With Agentic AI moving from experimentation to enterprise roadmap decisions, procurement leaders face a common challenge: making high-stakes choices without reliable benchmarks. The Index was created to close that gap — providing a consistent, year-over-year yardstick to evaluate readiness, de-risk deployment, and align stakeholders around a pragmatic adoption path.
“Agentic AI will not be optimized from isolated pilots or without strategic intent,” said Richard Gardner, Senior Director, Advisory Market Intelligence, The Hackett Group. “CPOs need a clear baseline and a trusted benchmark to prioritize where to start, how to govern risk, and how to invest for measurable outcomes. This Index is built to be that annual reference point.”
“Procurement leaders are seeking clarity: which architectures scale, where ROI appears first, and what risks must be managed,” said Aatish Dedhai, Founder & CEO, Zycus. “The Adoption Index brings structure and comparability to decisions that many teams are making for the first time.”
What the 2026 Index reveals
The inaugural Index surfaces clear signals about where procurement stands today — and where it’s heading:
- The Readiness Baseline: Only 60% of procurement executives are confident their teams understand Agentic AI capabilities — establishing a starting point for industry-wide maturity.
- The Architecture Direction: 65% say their end goal is orchestrated Agentic workflows, and they strongly prefer pre-built, interoperable agent sets that work together across the S2P ecosystem—even as many organizations start with task-specific agents.
- The ROI Priorities: The top expected return areas include spend analytics, PO processing, market/pricing intelligence, supplier onboarding, and contract management — highlighting where leaders anticipate early value.
- The Risk Map: The highest perceived implementation risks are fraud detection, autonomous negotiations, contract management, payables, and stakeholder management — emphasizing where governance and controls are essential.
- Tail spend gap: 86% are likely/very likely to use AI agents for low-risk tail spend negotiations, yet only 36% are satisfied with current tail spend management — becoming an early proving ground.
- The Investment Trajectory: Procurement organizations expect to allocate 12% of procurement technology budgets to Agentic AI within three years — underscoring urgency and the need for disciplined investment planning.
A practical benchmark procurement leaders can use immediately
Beyond insights, the Index is intended to support executive action: calibrating readiness, shaping an adoption roadmap, informing governance, and aligning procurement, finance, IT, and legal leadership on where to deploy autonomy — and where to keep tighter controls.
The report is authored by Pierre Mitchell, Distinguished Research Analyst, and Richard Gardner, Senior Director, Market Intelligence, and was developed by The Hackett Group in partnership with Zycus.
About Zycus:
Zycus delivers procurement outcomes and not just transactions. Its leadership in Source-to-Pay is independently recognized by leading analysts, and customers worldwide.
By moving beyond Source-to-Pay to Intake-to-Outcomes, Zycus is defining the next generation of procurement. Its unified platform uniquely combines native Intake, Agentic AI, and an end-to-end S2P core in a single architecture.
The Merlin Agentic AI Platform brings this vision to life – guiding every request through Merlin Intake, unlocking hidden savings through Autonomous Negotiation, and continuously executing toward outcomes, not workflows.
About The Hackett Group
The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT) is an IP-based, Gen AI strategic consulting and executive advisory firm that enables Digital World Class® performance. Using AI XPLR – our AI assessment platform – our experienced professionals guide organizations to harness the power of Gen AI to digitally transform their operations and achieve quantifiable breakthrough results, allowing us to be key architects of their Gen AI journey
Pooja Newar
Senior Manager – Marketing,
Zycus Inc.
pooja.newar@zycus.com
