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TL;DR
- AI Procurement World Tour 2025 highlights: procurement is shifting from pure cost focus to resilience, sustainability, and AI-driven value.
- Scaling AI: leaders discussed moving beyond pilots to enterprise-wide AI adoption.
- ESG compliance & risk: sustainability and regulatory pressures are now board-level priorities.
- Talent transformation: digital fluency and AI skills are becoming non-negotiable for procurement teams.
- Zycus innovations: Agentic AI, Merlin Intake, and ANA (Autonomous Negotiation Agent) showcased as enablers of orchestration, risk mitigation, and faster negotiations.
- Future outlook: AI is cemented as the engine driving procurement’s role in resilience, innovation, and sustainable growth.
Introduction
After successful editions in Amsterdam and Frankfurt, the Zycus Procurement AI World Tour arrived in Copenhagen on October 16, bringing with it a wave of anticipation. Copenhagen added its own Nordic perspective, with a strong focus on sustainability, risk, and scaling AI beyond pilots. The event brought together a diverse set of voices—practitioners, consultants, and innovators—each exploring how procurement can thrive amidst disruption. The energy in the room was palpable: part urgency, part curiosity, and very much excitement for what lies ahead.
Turbulence Meets Procurement
We opened with Per Svanberg from EY, who set the tone by mapping the macro shocks redefining supply chains: tariffs, ESG pressures, geopolitical conflicts, inflation, and cyber risks. His chart on procurement’s expanding responsibilities illustrated how our profession has grown from contract management and savings delivery into a multi-dimensional guardian of resilience, sustainability, and compliance.
His line describing the CPO as a “chief value officer” struck a chord with many in the audience. And for me, it echoed exactly why Zycus is investing so deeply in Agentic AI—because procurement’s role is expanding, not shrinking.
Attendee Voices That Stood Out
Throughout the sessions and roundtables, I had the chance to exchange thoughts with several leaders:
- A Nordic pharma procurement director admitted: “We used to benchmark success on cost. Now, continuity and compliance dominate every board discussion.”
- An FMCG executive added: “We’ve nailed four AI pilots, but scaling them into enterprise workflows is our biggest stumbling block.”
- An energy sector CPO spoke of talent transformation: “Negotiation skills matter, yes, but digital fluency is non-negotiable now.”
These weren’t just isolated comments; they mirrored what Martin Fog presented in his talk on Procurement Challenges & Opportunities: supply chain volatility, cost pressures, ESG compliance, skills gaps, and scaling AI beyond pilots.
From Paper to Platforms
One of my favorite moments was Martin’s storytelling journey—from a faded manual requisition form of the 1990s to today’s integrated finance-procurement value chain.
Procurement’s transformation is not theoretical—it’s lived history. And today, our mission is to accelerate that journey further with platforms that unify intake, orchestration, and AI-powered decision-making. With Merlin Intake simplifying user adoption and ANA (Autonomous Negotiation Agent) speeding up tail-spend negotiations, we are helping enterprises move from tactical execution to delivering deep value.
Technology: The Undeniable Driver
The event underscored what many of us already feel in our daily conversations with customers: technology is the decisive driver. EY’s survey showed that 59% of CPOs allocate 6–15% of their procurement budgets to technology. More telling was the AI adoption curve:
- 73% of professionals already using AI in procurement.
- 43% planning to implement Gen AI within 12 months.
- 90% considering or already experimenting with AI agents.
For me, these numbers validate our commitment at Zycus to Agentic AI—not just pilots, but scaled deployments that transform how procurement teams orchestrate intake, mitigate supplier risk, and accelerate negotiation velocity with tools like ANA.
My Takeaway
Walking out of Copenhagen, I felt proud—not just of what Zycus contributed, but of what procurement as a discipline is becoming.
Procurement is no longer a supporting act. It is fast becoming the engine of enterprise resilience, innovation, and sustainable growth. With Agentic AI, we’re not only optimizing processes—we’re unlocking deep value: reducing risk, accelerating savings, and enabling sustainability at scale.
Copenhagen capped a powerful trilogy of European stops—Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and now Denmark. Each city added fresh perspectives, but all shared a common truth: procurement’s future will be written by AI-powered transformation.
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FAQs
Q1. What was the focus of the Copenhagen AI Procurement World Tour 2025?
The event emphasized sustainability, risk management, and scaling AI in procurement beyond pilots, with a strong Nordic perspective.
Q2. Who were some of the key speakers and contributors?
Speakers included Per Svanberg from EY and Martin Fog, alongside voices from pharma, FMCG, and energy sectors who shared real-world challenges and insights.
Q3. What were the main procurement challenges discussed?
Leaders cited supply chain volatility, ESG compliance, cost pressures, talent gaps, and difficulty in scaling AI initiatives.
Q4. How is Zycus addressing the procurement challenges?
Through Agentic AI solutions like Merlin Intake for user adoption, ANA (Autonomous Negotiation Agent) for tail-spend efficiency, and orchestration platforms for resilience and sustainability.
Related Reads:
- Success Story: European Hotel Group Experiences Increased Productivity Through A Stable And Scalable Zycus P2P Solution
- Watch Video: Driving procurement resilience amidst economic downturn & uncertainty: A European Perspective
- Research Report: Ten Megatrends and insights for the European CPOs
- Source-to-pay vs Procure-to-pay: A Guide
- How S2P Applications Supercharge Your Bottom Line
