Introduction

Intake management has long been an essential yet cumbersome process in procurement, often burdened by rigid workflows, manual approvals, and inefficiencies. Traditional intake solutions have optimized some parts of the process, but they still rely heavily on human intervention.

Enter GenAI (Generative AI) and Agentic AI—two transformative technologies that are redefining intake management by enabling conversational, autonomous, and intelligent decision-making.

Merlin Intake, built on the Merlin Agentic Platform, offers a conversational UI, deep configurability, and seamless integration with Microsoft Teams—all while ensuring policy compliance without complex forms and rule-based workflows. It can adapt to a variety of use cases across procurement, finance, and IT, ensuring a frictionless experience for end users.

Listen to Aatish Dedhia, Founder and CEO of Zycus, as he outlines the future of procurement with agentic AI and intelligent intake management in this keynote session

Here are 10 impactful use cases of AI-Powered Intake Management where GenAI and Agentic AI are revolutionizing and driving significant ROI for enterprises.

1. Smart Demand Capture & Auto-Triage

GenAI Capabilities:

• Converts unstructured requests (emails, Teams messages, voice notes) into structured procurement requests
• Extracts and auto-populates key details (supplier name, category, budget, urgency)
• Understands natural language queries, eliminating the need for static forms

Agentic AI Capabilities:

• Acts as an autonomous assistant, validating and routing requests without manual intervention
• Learns business rules dynamically, adapting triaging logic based on past approvals and patterns

Impact:

Reduces intake cycle time by 40-50%, eliminating redundant manual processing.

2. Intelligent Sourcing & RFx Generation

GenAI Capabilities:

• Drafts RFQs/RFPs by analyzing historical data, contracts, and supplier capabilities
• Summarizes supplier responses for faster decision-making

Agentic AI Capabilities:

• Identifies the best-fit suppliers and autonomously initiates RFx processes
• Self-learns from sourcing outcomes to refine future supplier recommendations

Impact:

Reduces sourcing cycle times and improves supplier selection accuracy.

3. AI-Driven Contract Intake & Compliance

GenAI Capabilities:

• Extracts key clauses from contracts and auto-suggests modifications based on policies
• Summarizes contract risks and highlights missing terms in legal review

Read more: Revolutionizing Contract Management with AI-Driven Analytics

Agentic AI Capabilities:

• Routes contracts to legal or procurement based on real-time risk assessments
• Negotiates standard clauses autonomously using pre-approved templates

Impact:

Enhances contract compliance while reducing review times by 50%.

4. Supplier Onboarding & Risk Assessment

GenAI Capabilities:

• Extracts supplier data from websites, PDFs, and emails for automatic onboarding
• Summarizes supplier risk reports based on financial and compliance data

Agentic AI Capabilities:

• Automates supplier validation and document requests
• Continuously monitors risk databases to flag at-risk suppliers

Impact:

Reduces onboarding time from weeks to days, ensuring continuous risk monitoring.

5. Autonomous PO & Non-PO Processing

GenAI Capabilities:

• Converts free-text requests into structured PO formats
• Predicts preferred suppliers and approval routes based on past transactions

Agentic AI Capabilities:

• Auto-generates POs, triggers approvals, and self-corrects missing fields
• Learns policy enforcement rules and refines approval logic

Impact:

Reduces maverick spend and improves procurement efficiency.

6. Automated Invoice Matching & Dispute Resolution

GenAI Capabilities:

• Reads invoices, matches them with POs, and flags discrepancies
• Summarizes disputes and suggests resolution pathways

Agentic AI Capabilities:

• Auto-initiates supplier follow-ups for missing invoices or payment issues
• Learns from past disputes to preemptively flag potential issues

Impact:

Minimizes invoice mismatches and ensures faster dispute resolution.

7. AI-Guided Budget & Finance Approvals

GenAI Capabilities:

• Summarizes budget utilization and ROI projections for approvals
• Provides recommendations on whether to approve, defer, or optimize requests

Agentic AI Capabilities:

• Auto-approves low-risk transactions within policy thresholds
• Triggers CFO/CPO escalations only for high-risk anomalies

Impact:

Reduces manual effort in finance approvals while enforcing budget discipline.

8. Proactive Maverick Spend Prevention

GenAI Capabilities:

• Identifies non-compliant spend patterns and suggests policy-compliant alternatives
• Summarizes category-wise spend trends for optimization

Agentic AI Capabilities:
Blocks unauthorized purchases by redirecting requests to approved suppliers
Continuously enforces procurement policies autonomously

Listen to Podcast: From Neglected to Negotiated: How Agents Capture More than $50M in Tail Spend

Impact:

Saves organizations millions by preventing unauthorized or off-contract spend.

9. AI-Powered IT & Marketing Procurement

GenAI Capabilities:

• Converts vague software or marketing tool requests into precise vendor comparisons
• Summarizes license terms and tracks renewal deadlines

Agentic AI Capabilities:

• Negotiates SaaS subscriptions based on past contract benchmarks
• Auto-renews critical IT licenses while canceling unused ones

Impact:

Reduces IT spend waste and streamlines software procurement.

Explore Zycus’ Services Procurement Software Solutions

10. Self-Service Procurement with Conversational AI

GenAI Capabilities:

• Enables chatbot-driven intake where users submit requests in natural language
• Provides AI-powered recommendations on suppliers, contracts, and approvals

Agentic AI Capabilities:

• Acts as an autonomous procurement concierge, handling requests end-to-end
• Continuously learns from interactions to improve accuracy and efficiency

Impact:

Eliminates procurement bottlenecks and enhances user experience.

The ROI of AI-Powered Intake Management

By integrating GenAI for language understanding and insight generation with Agentic AI for autonomous execution, enterprises can transform intake management from a slow, reactive process to a proactive, intelligent, and self-learning system.

Key ROI Benefits:

• 40-50% reduction in intake processing time
• 30-40% faster sourcing and supplier onboarding
• 20-30% cost savings by preventing maverick spend
• 50% efficiency gains in contract approvals and invoice processing
• Improved user experience with conversational AI and self-service procurement

See Patrick Reymann, Research Director, Procurement and Enterprise Applications talks about ROI from GenAI on Zycus’ Horizon 2024

Future-Proof Your Procurement with Merlin Intake

Merlin Intake is built for the future, with seamless GenAI-powered intake, Agentic AI-driven automation, and a conversational UI that works within Microsoft Teams. By ensuring policy compliance without complex workflows, it unlocks deep value across procurement, finance, and IT.

Would you like a customized framework to evaluate the ROI of AI-driven intake automation? Contact us today!

Related Reads:

1. Unlocking Success: Intake Management Best Practices And Key Strategies
2. Intake to Pay vs. Procure to Pay: Key Differences and Selecting the Right Approach
3. Steps to Transform Your Procurement Intake Process
4. The Growing Significance of Intake to Procure Management Soaring in Procurement
5. Smart AI Procurement Intake Tools for Success
6. Revolutionizing Procurement Requests and Intake Management Automation: Empowering Users in the Procurement Ecosystem
7. The Evolution of Intake Management: From Bolt-On to Built-In
8. White paper: The New Age of Procurement- GenAI Powered Interactive Workflows
9. White paper: Procurement Automation- Overcoming dearth of supplier adoption
10. Pulse of Procurement 2024
11. Solution: GenAI Powered Merlin Intake
12. Solution: eProcurement Software