Your sourcing strategy
shouldn't start with a requisition
Describe a business problem. Turn it into a sourcing outcome.
Merlin Agentic Sourcing continuously connects category intelligence, supplier discovery, market benchmarking, and autonomous sourcing execution to help procurement make better decisions and deliver measurable savings.
Measurable sourcing impact. Built into every event
What procurement organizations get from Merlin Agentic Sourcing
Powered by Zycus' full Source-to-Pay ecosystem, Merlin Agentic Sourcing brings management-consultant-level category strategy into the procurement workflow.
Procurement is accountable for value.
But by the time you're looped in, the value is already gone
Two agentic flows. One sourcing intelligence layer.
Merlin Agentic Sourcing thinks like your best category manager.
Then executes like your fastest sourcing team.
Category intelligence & spend strategy
Analyzes spend, risk, contracts, and market benchmarks before the first supplier is contacted.
RFP execution & award intelligence
Runs the sourcing event end-to-end, from pricing tables to award recommendations, autonomously.
From spend data to sourcing strategy,
without analysts or consultants
| Cost Component | Market Rate | Supplier Quote | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labor (skilled) | $42 / hr | $51 / hr | +21.4% |
| Raw materials | $2,840 | $3,100 | +9.2% |
| Logistics and handling | $680 | $680 | 0% |
| Overhead (estimated) | $1,200 | $1,450 | +20.8% |
| Total (per unit) | $4,762 | $5,281 | +10.9% |
| Supplier | D&B Rating | AVL Status | ESG Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Siemens AG | 5A1 | Approved | 87 / 100 |
| Honeywell | 5A1 | Approved | 82 / 100 |
| ABB Group | 5A2 | Under review | 95 / 100 |
| Schneider Elec. | 5A1 | Approved | 83 / 100 |
| Recommended shortlist (3 of 4) | Siemens AG · Honeywell · Schneider Elec. | ||
Should-cost modeling
AI-built cost breakdowns from commodity indices, labor rates, and benchmarks. Hours, not weeks.
Spend & contract intelligence
36-month spend analysis + iContract expiry signals = automated savings plan workflow.
Supplier discovery
Global search with D&B financial health scoring, AVL compliance, and regional capability mapping.
ESG & risk assessment
Credit checks, Scope 1/2/3 carbon tracking, geopolitical monitoring. ESG configurable up to 40% of supplier rank.
Stakeholder intake
Conversational intake structures requirements in minutes. Auto-routes: <€100K tactical, >€100K strategic.
Market benchmarking
Real-time rate comparison across logistics, packaging, MRO, and professional services. Flags supplier variance live.
From strategy to award, without manual RFP overhead
Pricing table creation
Multi-lot tables with volume tiers, fuel indexing, and currency normalization. 30 lines in 3 minutes.
Questionnaire & template reuse
Auto-loads 28-31 questions from past RFP playbooks. Adds new compliance questions. Learns from corrections.
Explainable supplier recommendation
Recommends 6-8 bidders with full justification: criteria met, fit scores, performance data, risk flags. No black box.
Go/No-Go validation
Automated gates across 8+ criteria (ISO certs, insurance, AVL). Non-compliant suppliers disqualified before RFP access.
Supplier comms & Q&A
Personalized invites, deadline-aware reminders, AI-drafted Q&A. 100% participation in live demo vs. 60-75% industry norm.
Award & scenario modeling
Four scenarios: lowest TCO, best value, risk-optimized, incumbent retention, each with savings calc and negotiation leverage.
Built on years of sourcing data, refined by the agentic era
Merlin Agentic Sourcing is built on the Merlin Agentic AI platform that powers procurement at hundreds of global enterprises, refined by the data and decisions of thousands of sourcing events.
Agentic flow turns years of compounding intelligence into coordinated procurement action.
Proven across six verticals
Why procurement leaders choose Merlin Agentic Sourcing
| Feature | AI-Assisted eSourcing Tools | Merlin Agentic Sourcing |
|---|---|---|
| Workflow scope | Individual task assistance | End-to-end autonomous workflow |
| Proactive opportunity detection | AI-driven, continuous | |
| Should-cost modeling | Manual or consultant-led | AI-automated in hours |
| Compliance gates (AVL, ESG, financial) | Manual verification | Automated, configurable |
| Supplier discovery intelligence | Basic keyword search | D&B + AVL + ESG scoring built-in |
| Autonomous RFP execution | Full event, end-to-end | |
| Award scenario modeling | Single scenario | 4 scenarios with savings calc |
| Cycle time improvement | Marginal | 60% faster |
| Additional savings identified | 2-3% | 8-15% |
Frequently asked questions
Agentic Sourcing is distinct from AI-assisted eSourcing, which augments individual steps, and from autonomous tail-spend tools, which handle low-risk transactions without strategic intent. The defining characteristic is workflow-level autonomy applied to strategic spend categories, where the stakes, complexity, and cycle times make manual execution costly and slow. Merlin Agentic Sourcing is the enterprise standard for this category.
How is this different from AI features other sourcing solutions have added?
Most are AI-assisted, not agentic. They help with discrete tasks: drafting an RFx, summarizing a contract. MAS runs the full workflow, from problem statement to award, and recommends the path along the way. The difference is task-level help versus workflow-level autonomy.
Does this replace my sourcing team?
No. MAS replaces the work that doesn't need to be done by a human: data pulls, benchmark hunts, document scraping, first-draft analysis. It frees your team for the work that does need a human: stakeholder conversations, supplier relationships, judgment calls. Decision points stay with you.
How is MAS different from Merlin ANA?
ANA is built for tail spend: autonomous negotiation on high-volume, low-risk transactions, run by business users. MAS is built for strategic spend: the full sourcing workflow on the categories where stakes are highest, run by procurement professionals. Many customers use both: ANA on the tail, MAS on the strategic core.
What about data security and governance?
MAS runs on the Merlin Agentic Platform with role-based controls, audit trails on every agent action, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints at every consequential decision. You define the guardrails. The agent operates inside them.
What about AVL validation and compliance guardrails?
AVL validation is enforced as a hard gate: non-approved suppliers are filtered before any recommendation surfaces and auto-disqualified before they access any RFP. In regulated industries like Aerospace and Defense where engaging non-AVL suppliers is prohibited, this is configurable as a mandatory first gate.
What if our data isn't clean enough?
MAS works with the data you have. The Zycus Intake-to-Outcomes platform has been refining enterprise procurement data for years. Cleanup, normalization, and enrichment is part of the foundation, not a prerequisite you solve before getting value.
Does MAS require the full Zycus suite?
MAS delivers highest value within the Zycus Intake-to-Outcomes ecosystem, where iAnalyze spend data and iContract expiry signals feed directly into the Strategy Flow. It can also connect to non-Zycus ERP and procurement systems via MCP. The cross-product integration, iContract + iAnalyze + MAS, is where the most differentiated workflows become possible.
See what sourcing looks like when it starts earlier
A 30-minute demo with one of our solutions architects, walking through MAS on a category and a problem you actually care about, not a generic scripted flow.
