Introducing suite-wide AI innovations at Zip Forward

Today at Zip Forward, we announced a new wave of AI functionality purpose-built for the real work of procurement. Developed in close collaboration with our customers, these capabilities make it easier than ever for employees and stakeholders to simplify intake, orchestrate purchasing, and manage spend end-to-end with confidence.

This year  also marks a milestone: our first two-day event in San Francisco, bringing together more than 700 procurement and finance professionals from around the globe. With a keynote lineup featuring industry leaders from OpenAI, Block, and Gap, plus more than three dozen sessions and workshops, Zip Forward has grown from a small customer gathering downstairs of our first office into a landmark annual event.

We’re proud to host this global community of leaders shaping the future of procurement, sharing best practices, bold new ideas, and the breakthroughs that will define the next decade of business. And we’d like to introduce a few of those breakthroughs today.

Introducing new platform-wide AI innovations

Today we’re unveiling our most comprehensive suite of AI-enhancements yet. Designed alongside our customers, these capabilities give every requester and stakeholder smarter search, richer context, and intelligent guidance at every step across the entire procurement process.

AI-powered workflow routing

Employees can now use natural language to discover the right workflow or purchase channel. Requesters are intelligently guided to the correct intake form, internal catalog, external marketplace, or third-party system, reducing errors and saving time on common procurement tasks.

AI-assisted intake

Purchase requests can now be pre-filled with AI-extracted details from documents like order forms, project briefs, MSAs, or DPAs. 

Zip AI also pulls line items directly from quotes and statements of work, enabling employees to submit requests with minimal effort. The result is a faster, more accurate intake process that reduces manual input and cuts down on errors, keeping the purchasing process swiftly moving.

Universal AI assistance

Real-time AI guidance is now embedded across intake and requests. Employees receive conversational help for complex questions with instant answers on spend limits or compliance requirements, with step-by-step support across approvals, change orders, and purchase order status checks. The AI assistant also now kicks off relevant Zip AI Agents as needed.

Expanding our AI agent ecosystem

Earlier this year, we launched our agentic procurement orchestration platform, introducing AI agents that take on specific, high value procurement tasks. Today, we’re expanding this ecosystem with new agents that drive measurable business impact.

Price Negotiation Agent

One of procurement’s most persistent challenges is the lack of pricing transparency. Suppliers know what everyone else pays; buyers don’t. This imbalance often leaves procurement teams without the benchmarks they need, resulting in overpayments that can add up into the millions.

The Price Negotiation Agent levels the playing field. It analyzes both internal purchase history and external market benchmarks, then provides data-backed negotiation tactics tailored to each contract. When procurement teams go to renew software, for example, the agent can instantly compare historic rates, check third-party benchmarks, and even draft negotiation emails.

The impact is significant: customers project 3-5% savings per contract and 1-2 hours saved per request, with companies like Cribl forecasting nearly $3M in annual cost reductions through smarter negotiations and faster cycle times.

Invoice-to-Contract Compliance Agent

Ensuring invoices align with negotiated terms is a tedious but vital task. This agent automatically verifies invoices against their contracts, flags discrepancies, and ensures rates and terms are consistently applied. The result: fewer costly errors and tighter compliance.

Drive greater visibility with PO Management

Today we’re also introducing a new add-on for our Intake-to-Procure customers: PO Management. This much-requested new offering gives stakeholders full purchase order visibility and new levels of control directly within Zip.

• More visibility: Stakeholders gain complete line of sight into purchase orders and matched invoices.
  
  
• Self-service experience: Reduces manual status checks and back-and-forth Q&A by enabling stakeholders to find PO information on their own.
  
  
• More accurate data: Automatically keeps PO balances and statuses current, minimizing discrepancies.

In practice, PO Management brings everything into one place. It surfaces purchase orders that need attention, keeps data accurate, monitors projected spend, proactively flags overspending, and generates precise accruals directly within Zip.

Increase control with enhanced Procure-to-Pay (P2P)

We’re also introducing powerful Procure-to-Pay enhancements designed to increase accuracy and reduce risk in the payment process.

• Agentic invoice coding: Deploys an AI agent to intelligently code invoices based on context, such as matching vendors by email address or grouping line items by matter code. Teams can define custom prompts and rules to guide the agent’s behavior, with accuracy improving over time through institutional memory.
  
  
• AI payment risk insights: Continuously monitors payments and payment methods, flagging suspicious activity before payments are processed. Provides clear, actionable guidance on how to respond to potential risks.

Together, these P2P enhancements give accounting teams greater confidence and control in managing spend.

Zip Forward: Community is at the center of everything we do

As always, the best part of Zip Forward is the people. Earlier this year we launched Zip Community, a dedicated space for procurement and finance professionals to connect, mentor, and share expertise. 

Be it tactical advice, career development, or simply comparing notes on the challenges and opportunities of modern procurement, Zip Community has quickly become a hub for collaboration.

Bringing hundreds of global leaders together at Zip Forward is one of the reasons we continue to build pioneering, agentic procurement orchestration products. Our customers are operating at peak performance, and their leadership inspires us every day.

Stay tuned for more announcements from Zip Forward in the days ahead.