Agentic Procurement Is Moving From Theory To Reality. Are CIOs Ready To Govern It?

A Gartner forecast that AI agents could mediate 90 percent of B2B buying by 2028 may sound ambitious. But new products designed to negotiate software contracts autonomously suggest that the forecast is becoming a reality.

For many CIOs, the idea of AI agents negotiating with vendors or influencing purchasing decisions may sound futuristic, or even a little ludicrous.

However, an increasing number of tech suppliers are building tools designed to do exactly that.

The trend was spotlighted after Gartner predicted in November 2025 that 90 percent of B2B buying could be intermediated by AI agents by 2028, representing more than $15 trillion in spending. While that forecast remains years away, recent developments in procurement technology suggest some organizations are already experimenting with AI-driven negotiations and purchasing recommendations.

One example is this week when procurement technology provider Vertice launched Ana, an AI negotiation agent designed to negotiate software purchases on behalf of organizations.

AI Agents Are Beginning To Enter Procurement

Vertice describes Ana as a procurement-focused AI agent capable of conducting software negotiations either autonomously or with human oversight.

According to the company, the platform has already been used across more than 4,000 negotiations involving over $500 million in spend, delivering average savings of 18 percent while reducing renewal cycles by 15 days. Vertice also said in a news release that its system has been trained using a procurement intelligence dataset consisting of more than 250,000 negotiated contracts, $75 billion in indirect spend and more than 2 million price points (MES Computing has not independently verified these claims.)

Vertice said the platform can evaluate negotiation strategies, draft communications, enforce procurement requirements and maintain auditable records of purchasing discussions.

"Most procurement teams only have the capacity to oversee a fraction of their software spend. The rest gets waved through," Eldar Tuvey, founder and CEO of Vertice, said in a statement. "Ana changes the equation."

The announcement reflects a broader shift underway across procurement technology. Increasingly, vendors are moving past workflow automation and developing systems capable of making suggestions and actively participating in purchasing processes.

The Next Governance Question

Whether AI agents eventually negotiate every software contract may be less important to CIOs than the governance question that may arise.

For example, if an AI agent recommends one supplier over another, CIOs may need visibility into how those recommendations were made and how those decisions can be audited later.

Those concerns mirror governance issues IT leaders are already tackling: As more AI-powered applications get deployed, many are still working to understand where AI is used, how underlying models change and what impact those changes ultimately may have on business outcomes.