Procurement and AI: Unlocking New Value in SAP Processes
From operational management to decision support: artificial intelligence is driving organizations to rethink activities, skills, and responsibilities—including through integration with SAP.
By 2027, 50% of organizations would be using artificial intelligence tools to support supplier contract negotiations. This was the prediction published by Gartner in May 2024, which identified contract management as a key area in procurement’s evolution. Two years later, the direction appears clear, although the shift is not yet fully established.
While comprehensive year-end data is still pending, a gap appears to be emerging. Another Gartner survey highlights that 63% of senior procurement leaders expect AI to significantly improve performance over the next three years. Yet only 25% have already redesigned jobs and roles as a direct result of AI implementation.
Procurement has evolved from an operational and administrative function into a strategic driver of resilience, risk management, and competitiveness: selecting a supplier, negotiating terms, or identifying a critical issue contributes to business continuity and the company’s ability to grow. Supporting this responsibility requires changes to day-to-day work, using the best available tools to optimize processes.
Digital Processes, Decisions Still to Be Made
Even today, companies that have digitized their processes with SAP Ariba and SAP S/4HANA still face many activities that require time and manual checks. Retrieving information from different systems, verifying its consistency, and turning it into an assessment remains a significant undertaking for teams.
“Digitizing a process does not necessarily mean automating every activity within it,” notes Veronica Rao, Managing Director, Mashfrog4Procurement (M4P). “Today, AI gives us the opportunity to take another step forward: making already digitized processes more intelligent, reducing manual work, and allowing people to focus on decisions and higher-value activities.”
This is the shift from automation to decision intelligence: embedding the ability to read documents, connect information, identify anomalies, and prepare the inputs needed for decisions directly into processes. The potential benefits span productivity, visibility, and the quality of controls.
Suppliers, Purchasing, and Contracts: Where AI Can Help
Three areas illustrate how this approach can change the way procurement teams work.
In supplier management and risk monitoring, AI can support supplier qualification by checking documentation for completeness and consistency against company requirements. It can also assist with subcontracting checks and the analysis of evidence collected during audits, flagging issues that require further investigation.
“These are different activities, but they share a common feature: they require repetitive checks and large volumes of information to interpret,” Rao explains. “AI can support precisely these steps, helping people do their work and making checks faster, more consistent, and more structured.”
In sourcing and purchasing operations, AI can support the preparation of tender documents, the development of evaluation matrices, and the comparison of bids against predefined criteria, with evaluators retaining responsibility for validation. It can also make relevant information more accessible to buyers: establishing the status of a case, retrieving terms and documents, highlighting missing data, and supporting exception management.
In contract management, AI can help compare clauses against company standards and identify deviations. After signing, it can organize obligations, deadlines, and milestones into structured information and support ongoing monitoring, flagging required actions and situations that need attention. The contract thus becomes a source of actionable information for activities that continue after signing.
Rethinking Work While Maximizing the Value of the SAP Ecosystem
Introducing these capabilities requires organizations to rethink their operating model: which checks to assign to AI, when to involve a specialist, and who validates a result.
AI agents make this shift particularly relevant because they can support sequences of activities within a process.
“This means moving from the automation of individual tasks to an approach in which specialized AI agents work alongside professionals throughout the different stages of procurement processes, from supplier qualification and sourcing to contract management and operational activities, integrating with enterprise systems,” Rao emphasizes. “The goal is to make oversight more continuous, structured, and sustainable, while always keeping people responsible for decisions.”
For SAP organizations, this evolution can build on the platforms they already use, integrating AI support into existing processes. As Rao puts it: “
The objective is to maximize the value of the investments already made in the SAP ecosystem, making existing processes more efficient and intelligent.”
M4P Brings AI into Procurement’s Daily Work
M4P – Mashfrog4Procurement (M4P) also supports this evolution. Developed by Mashfrog Group, this modular suite of specialized AI agents supports supplier management, sourcing, contract management, and the automation of operational purchasing activities. Its modular approach allows organizations to start with their priorities and gradually expand the scope of adoption while maintaining human oversight.
With M4P, Mashfrog combines expertise in procurement, SAP integration, and artificial intelligence to support this journey. The goal is to help teams make better use of available information, manage risks, and devote more attention to the decisions that shape the company’s future.