Ivalua NOW 2025: AI, Digital Champions & Transformation

Global leaders from some of the world’s largest companies have come together at New Orleans’ famous Caesars Superdrome for Ivalua NOW 2025. 

The event, hosted by leading cloud-based and AI-powered spend management company Ivalua, offers guests the opportunity to hear about some of the most transformative and innovative developments driving the future of procurement. 

Delivered under the theme of Elevate to Innovate, day one saw presentations and keynotes on themes including breakthrough AI technologies, championing digital transformation, risk and resilience. 

Ivalua CEO Franck Lheureux opened proceedings, delivering a keynote that set out Ivalua’s vision for tomorrow’s procurement.

Ivalua V10: multi-agent AI innovation

The transformative potential of innovations like Gen AI and AI agents were at the top of the agenda, including Ivalua’s own latest technologies. 

Chief Product Officer, Pascal Bensoussan, discussed V10 – the company’s next major version of its platform that lays the foundation for even more advancements in AI and automation. 

Pascal explained how V10 is designed to leverage agentic AI and enhance Ivalua’s low-code/no-code capabilities that let users customise and automate solutions themselves. 

It promises to give procurement teams facing increasing complexity intelligent automation and agent-based functionality. 

“A revolution is coming,” Pascal told the crowd. “There is huge transformative power in Gen AI that’s going to sit behind every software company, every piece of software and every enterprise application that will enable efficient processes across all industries.”

Pascal pointed to the pace of AI development in recent years, noting that it’s crucial for Ivalua to innovate and stay ahead of the field, particularly as “there is a gap between the promise and reality of AI”.

V10, designed for accuracy, compliance and security, experience and agility, will bridge this gap using a multi-agent system. 

It takes an AI agent-first approach, using advanced agents capable of understanding user intent, retrieving data, completing workflows and interacting conversationally – a capability that frees procurement teams to focus on strategic value. 

This aligns with the company’s five-point vision for the future of its solutions and how they enhance procurement: intelligent, conversational, holistic, flexible and connected. 

“We want our agents to be given an objective, a goal, a set of tools and data sources, provided with a query, and then be able to autonomously find the information they need and take the next steps by themselves,” says Pascal. 

V10 has a transparent, object-based data model, strict data access controls so agents only interact with data the user is authorised to see, and is built to deliver exceptional UX. 

This uses what Pascal describes as “on-the-fly orchestration”, whereby the AI creates interface elements in real time depending on user needs. 

V10 is the result of a development process in which Ivalua has redefined its approach to AI and maximised its capacity to innovate. 

“In five years time this development will take us from a current architecture to a place where agents play the role of system orchestration and operating system, tune models and procedures, have access to data and decide on their own how to orchestrate an experience. 

“This is going to transform the industry.”

Digital transformation and digital champions

This kind of innovation fuels the success of Ivalua’s customers, which was the subject of session on digital transformation at leading healthcare supplier Cleveland Clinic. 

This touched on how transformation should be used to not only meet today's objectives, but also to build a foundation for lasting success, particularly in enabling procurement to better serve the business.

Innovation can’t be delivered without inspirational leadership. This was the subject of a session on the importance of digital champions run by Ivalua’s Paul Sammit and including Bryon Russel from Mitre, Jerry Grable from BAE Systems and Accenture’s Charlie Barlow. 

Here, one recurring message was clear: successful transformation isn’t just about technology, but about people, planning and persistence. 

A key theme was starting early and engaging the business before any technology is implemented. Charlie said: “Start early, be intentional, strategic and productive – it’s crucial to get ahead of people and areas of complexity.”

The sessions also touched on the importance of building internal alignment and working with key stakeholders, developing local champions within the organisation, and taking a complex transformation in stages.

"It has to be constant awareness and constant marketing to make sure people know what your roadmap is and where we're going,” Jerry explained. 

Bryan added that any technology programme “is a transformation, not an implementation”, noting that “it’s hard to get people along on the journey, but Ivalua with its great UX was the best solution for us."

Future-proofing procurement

Other key sessions on the day touched on future-proofing procurement against risk, but also for upcoming tech innovation.

In a period where risk and disruption is rapidly becoming the norm, Ivalua’s Jarrod McAdoo, Prewave’s Nicole Brackett and Accenture’s James Dinette explored why proactive defence is essential. 

They discussed the importance of supply chain resilience, stating how technology, the ability to analyse data, respond to signals and manifesting a winning defence programme are critical.

The panel explored how data ecosystems and effective analysis are crucial to mitigating risk and focusing on insights that matter. According to James: “You need the right data foundation, governance and cross-functional coordination. The best algorithms in the world won’t work if the data is bad or users aren’t engaged.”

It ended with a call to arms from Jarrod, who encouraged guests to embrace technology and innovation, noting “this isn’t just about theory, this is the future of operational excellence.”

The closing session of the day touched on this, considering best practices for preparing for AI agent powered procurement. 

The session, which included speakers from Ivalua, Bulgari, Honeywell and Deloitte, covered practical steps on how to harness the kinds of AI innovations that Ivalua and others are developing. 

“If you don’t embrace AI, you simply won’t stay competitive,” said Bulgari’s CPO Matteo Perondi, explaining how the luxury brand has embedded AI across its organisation. 

Honeywell’s Senior Director of Procurement Transformation Steven Velte explained how the company is looking to use AI as a tool for enhancing customer-facing processes, but also to enhance employee knowledge and skills. 

All three speakers touched on the importance of AI agents in procurement workflows, particularly for efficiency and effectiveness, with Deloitte’s Brent Griffith noting that “Procurement holds one of the largest reserves of unstructured data in any organisation. AI agents can unlock insights from that data in ways traditional tools can’t.” 

Key takeaways from the session were the importance of responsible AI deployment and that companies should apply AI to decision intelligence for greater strategic outcomes. Ivalua’s Vishal Patel wrapped up the session, noting  “AI agents are coming, and they’ll change procurement as we know it.”

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