AI is changing procurement faster than many expected. Generative tools like ChatGPT have long been integrated into daily work, but AI agents represent the next level: systems that no longer just provide suggestions but execute tasks independently. This webinar demonstrates what this leap entails and how it transforms daily procurement operations.

Jakob Strobel (Product Development at Tacto) and Marcel Schweizer (Head of Procurement & IT at Koepfer) will demonstrate how AI agents eliminate manual tasks from daily procurement. Strobel will contextualize the technological development, while Marcel Schweizer will report on how Koepfer is already productively using several agents today.

From Generative AI to Action-Oriented Agents

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The crucial difference lies in action. Traditional AI recognizes patterns in data, and generative AI creates content and quickly delivers initial results, but that's where it stops. Agentic AI goes a step further: the agent evaluates context, independently retrieves data from systems, performs intermediate steps, and truly completes the task. Jakob Strobel illustrates this with an analogy: a generative AI provides the recipe for a cake, while an agent also takes on the baking. This leap is possible because models are becoming increasingly powerful and, at the same time, more affordable. However, a generic language model is not sufficient for procurement. An effective procurement agent requires three ingredients: a model that understands complex tasks, access to the right data from ERP and orders, and genuine procurement logic.

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The New Role of Procurement: From Operator to Architect

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With agents, the role of procurement professionals shifts across three dimensions. As reviewers, they check the agent's operational groundwork, correcting, approving, or rejecting it. As context providers, they supply the "between-the-lines" knowledge that a system cannot access, such as the reliability of a partnership or the true priority of a supplier. The role as a system designer changes most significantly when buyers determine which tasks run automatically, at what threshold human approval is required, and when escalation occurs. Repetitive, rule-based activities can be largely automated, strategic topics benefit from AI with human decision-making, and interpersonal aspects remain the responsibility of the buyer.

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AI Agents in Action at Koepfer

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Koepfer produces gears and transmission components for the automotive sector, employs nearly 900 people, and generates between 160 and 170 million euros in revenue, with approximately half of that attributed to procurement volume. In document and certificate management, for example, 50 certificates were uploaded and automatically recognized, assigned, and filed within three to four minutes, reducing manual effort to almost zero. The Defender Agent responds to price increase letters, checks them against market data and the company's own sales volume, and prepares a well-founded defense. The Benchmarking and Negotiation Preparation Agent enriches supplier data with industry indices and market data, for example from the Federal Statistical Office or the LME, and the Quote Agent automatically extracts incoming offers in RFQs and creates an overall overview, making manual Excel sheet maintenance a thing of the past. Additionally, Jakob Strobel demonstrates how Tacto itself uses an Orchestration Agent to have several specialized agents work in parallel and presents the results to a human for approval.

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Conclusion

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Koepfer's practical example illustrates that AI agents transform procurement not by replacing people, but by eliminating manual work from daily operations. The right question is not human or AI, but rather which tasks humans should handle and which an agent can prepare or complete entirely. The core competence of procurement thus shifts from processing individual tasks to designing the system.

Jakob Strobel (Tacto) and Marcel Schweizer (Koepfer) show in this webinar recording how the promise of AI turns into measurable relief for procurement: from the difference between generative and agentic AI, to the changing role of the buyer, to four agents already running in production at Koepfer, from certificate management to automated price defense to quote evaluation without Excel.