Zip in 2025: Global growth and AI-powered transformation

Q1 2025: Setting a global foundation for a remarkable year

The year began with a powerful statement: Zip’s enterprise impact in EMEA had arrived.

As global enterprises seek solutions to handling international complexity at scale while maintaining the agility procurement demands, we launched Zip for Risk Orchestration, our comprehensive risk management suite transforming how companies approach compliance workflows.

This marked a turning point in how enterprises manage procurement risk. No longer siloed or reactive, risk management became proactive and integrated, giving procurement teams the confidence to move fast without compromising security or compliance.

As one of the UK's leading challenger banks, Metro Bank needed a solution that could match their commitment to innovation while maintaining the rigorous standards required in financial services.

Before Zip, Metro Bank’s procurement processes were fragmented across multiple systems, creating inefficiencies that slowed down their ability to serve customers. Their risk teams were often brought in too late in the risk process, resulting in intense time pressure for assessments.

Today, they've unified their entire procurement operation on Zip's platform, achieving:

Complete process visibility with an end-to-end view around requests and timelines

Automated workflow routing that engages the right stakeholders at the right time

Ability to track cycle times and identify process improvements with hard facts

Seamless integration with their existing financial systems

The Zip team has been really helpful in challenging the muscle memory that exists to show us there's a different way to achieve a better solution.

James Drury

Head of Supplier Risk & Assurance

Metrobank

Q2 2025: Agentic procurement orchestration arrives

If Q1 laid the foundation, Q2 launched Zip into the future.

In June, at the AI Summit in New York, we unveiled Agentic Procurement Orchestration, our most significant platform update ever, completely re-imagining what procurement technology is capable of.

We introduced 50+ AI Agents purpose-built for procurement, each designed to handle specific workflows that traditionally consumed hours of manual effort. From intelligent intake routing to automated vendor risk assessments, these agents collaborate to create a procurement ecosystem that learns, adapts, and improves with every transaction.

The response from the market was immediate and overwhelming. Within weeks of launch, enterprises across industries were reporting productivity gains that exceeded even our most optimistic projections.

There's no better validation of our AI capabilities than partnering with OpenAI, the fastest-growing company on Earth and a pioneer of modern AI.

When OpenAI chose Zip to power their procurement operations, they needed a platform that could match their exponential growth while maintaining operational excellence.

OpenAI before Zip: The challenges were significant. Manual duplicate vendor checks consumed 15-20 minutes per review, with security teams repeatedly evaluating the same vendors multiple times. Their operations team lacked the context needed for efficient stakeholder follow-ups, creating bottlenecks that slowed their incredible pace of innovation.

OpenAI after Zip: The transformation has been remarkable:

1,400 hours saved annually with Zip's intake validation agent alone, eliminating unnecessary reviews

Operations teams now provide rich, AI-generated context to approvers, accelerating decision-making from days to hours

Complete elimination of duplicate vendor reviews through intelligent detection and routing

Strategic reallocation of team resources from manual tasks to high-value partnership development

We just implemented the fastest Oracle implementation ever, in 3 months. We could not have done that without Zip.

Ann Fleishell

Vice President of Procurement

OpenAI

Q3 2025: Momentum at scale

As the fall arrives in San Francisco, so did Zip Forward 2025, our first two-day event bringing together 700+ global procurement and finance leaders to connect, share ideas, and envision what’s possible in procurement.

What started as a small conference has evolved into something far more meaningful, a true homecoming for the procurement community, where innovation meets implementation and vision becomes reality.

The energy was electric as we unveiled the next evolution of intelligent procurement.

Our suite of innovations introduced at the event represents the most comprehensive advancement in procurement technology this decade:

Intelligent orchestration features:

AI-powered workflow routing automatically directs requests to the right approvers based on historical patterns and real-time context

AI-assisted intake transforms how requests enter the system, with intelligent form completion and automatic enrichment

Universal AI assistant provides cross-platform intelligence, giving every user a procurement expert at their fingertips

Game-changing AI agents:

Price Negotiation Agent leverages market intelligence to optimize every purchase

Invoice-to-Contract Compliance Agent ensures every invoice aligns with negotiated terms

Agentic Invoice Coding eliminates manual categorization with 99%+ accuracy

AI Payment Risk Insights proactively identifies and prevents payment fraud

Platform enhancements:

Next-Generation PO Management streamlining purchase order creation and tracking

P2P Platform Improvements create true end-to-end process optimization

Mark your calendars, Zip Forward 2026 promises to be even bigger, with expanded venues and breakthrough announcements that will reshape procurement once again.

First announced at DPW Amsterdam, our inaugural State of Spend report has become a definitive guide for understanding global procurement trends. Led by our Head of Research Nick Heinzmann, this comprehensive study surveyed 1,000+ global leaders to uncover:

Where companies are investing their resources and why

How AI adoption is affecting how we work, build, and hire

The evolving role of procurement in driving business strategy

Emerging talent strategies for the next generation of procurement professionals

The report's insights are designed to shape board-level procurement discussions, providing the data-driven foundation for transformation initiatives heading into 2026.

You can watch Nick Heinzmann’s Zip Forward presentation of State of Spend on-demand.

Q3 also saw the launch of Zip Community, recognizing that transformation happens not just through technology, but through connection. This premier space for procurement professionals has already grown to 700+ members who are:

Sharing best practices and real-world implementations

Finding mentorship opportunities across experience levels

Building careers through peer connections, guidance, and mentorship

Collaborating on solutions to industry-wide challenges

It’s been really neat to see how others are using Zip and I’ve been able to use their ideas to improve my own processes.

Ashley Kashmer

Procurement Manager

InvoiceCloud

Apply to join the Zip Community today.

Q4 2025: Record-breaking growth and enterprise impact

The final stretch of 2025 brings unprecedented momentum across every dimension of our business. As demand for intelligent procurement continues to soar, we are scaling our operations to meet the moment.

To support our rapid growth, we've continued to expand our physical presence:

San Francisco headquarters expansion doubles our Bay Area capacity, creating space for innovation labs and customer collaboration.

Toronto office grand opening establishes our growing Canadian presence, tapping into one of the world's deepest pools of technical talent

With these new expansions, along with a growing footprint in New York, London, and our remote employees worldwide, Zip is positioned to accelerate product development while staying close to our growing global customer base.

Q4 saw some of the world's most complex organizations choose Zip as their procurement platform of choice:

T-Mobile: When T-Mobile brought Zip onboard, they were looking for more than incremental improvement. Managing $35 billion in spend across 30,000 suppliers, they needed a complete procurement transformation. Within months of implementation, T-Mobile has:

Unified procurement operations across all business units

Built frictionless buying for repeatable transactions

Implemented a purpose-built, flexible system that evolves with peer group feedback

Empowered procurement to focus on high-value spend while routine purchases are streamlined

Dollar Tree: Before Zip, procurement influenced only 13% of Dollar Tree’s $5B non-product spend. The team was stuck in reactive mode, viewed more as policy enforcers than strategic partners. After implementing Zip procurement orchestration, Dollar Tree:

Brought procurement influence from 13% to over 40% of spend

Achieved 70% reduction in cycle times

Found $125 million in savings through smarter renewals and strategic initiatives

Launched over 100 strategic initiatives with full stakeholder alignment

Mutual of Omaha: Even established enterprises are embracing procurement transformation. Mutual of Omaha's adoption of Zip demonstrates that innovation knows no boundaries:

Modernized decades-old procurement processes without disruption

Achieved 68% decrease in cycle times

Decreased vendor intake questioning by 76%

Proved that digital transformation can honor legacy while embracing the future

The fact that we can bring together so many teams across the organization to achieve a request seamlessly is not something that we could have done on our own without Zip.

Kate Hiykel, Program Manager, Vendor Management, Mutual of Omaha

68%

decrease in cycle times

Looking ahead to 2026: The Year of Divergence

As we close this remarkable year, we’re grateful for our achievements, while also accelerating toward an even more transformative future.

Everything we've built in 2025 points to a clear vision: 2026 will be the Year of Divergence.

The industry has reached an inflection point, and the gap is about to widen. Organizations that have embraced procurement orchestration are already reaping the rewards: faster cycles, measurable savings, and teams empowered to drive strategic value. Those still bolting AI onto legacy systems or taking a band-aid approach will start to feel the limitations.

The category we pioneered, "intake and orchestration," has expanded and is now synonymous with next-generation procurement.

What we've proven in 2025 is that modern procurement demands more than point solutions. It requires a unified, AI-first platform designed to transform every aspect of how companies buy, manage, and optimize business spend.

Our platform vision for 2026 centers on three principles:

The traditional boundaries between procurement categories are dissolving. Intake, orchestration, sourcing, contracts, invoicing, and everything else that makes up the procurement workflow, are now interconnected elements of a single, intelligent system.

And Zip is building the platform that brings it all together.

The future of procurement is no mystery. 20+ industry experts reveal what’s coming in 2026.

Access the guide

For more perspective on what the new year will bring, we invited 20+ industry leading voices to share their '2026 Procurement Predictions' 🔮

Grab the guide to get ahead of what’s coming and ensure your transformation strategy stays ahead of the curve.

As we look back in the year, one thing is crystal clear: we’re just getting started. With more than $6 billion in savings, hundreds of enterprises transformed, and thousands of practitioners empowered, Zip has demonstrated what’s possible when pioneering vision meets relentless execution.

Thank you for being a part of this incredible journey. Here’s to 2026: The Year of Divergence.