How AI Helps Procurement Deliver More ROI

Hello everyone, and welcome back, Techstrong TV. I'm Colleen Coll, and we are still at Coupa Inspire 2026 in Las Vegas. Lots of conversations, of course.

And joining me now is Trisha Miller. She is the south, south senior vice president of product solution marketing and chief evangelist. I was thinking it when I said south.

She told me that she lives in Orlando. Mm-hmm. So of course, thinking of Florida.

So Trisha, thank you for joining us. It's great to have you here. Thank you very much.

I'm excited for the conversation, so I'm happy to be here. Oh, wonderful. And so far, two days of Coupa Inspire.

Any key insights that you flagged? The buzz, the conversations? Yeah.

I love the use of the word buzz. It's been an incredibly exciting couple of days. This is our largest Inspire ever.

Of course. And it reflects the fact that so many of our customers and our prospects are here, to use a corny word, but to be inspired by- I love that ... by us and by their peers on how they embark on this next part of this transformation journey, which is fundamentally is going to change the way our teams work.

Yes. And so, the buzz from your standpoint is that you're reframing the way that people are looking at procurement. You're saying the question isn't what ROI will AI deliver, the question is what ROI will procurement deliver with AI.

Do you want to expand upon that? I do indeed. So you obviously in my title, you mentioned that I have responsibility for product solution marketing- Yes ...

customer experience marketing- Mm ... and then chief evangelist. But the most obvious of those and logical of those is actually chief evangelist.

Chief evangelist. Because I come to the role in Coupa with 20 plus years, almost 25 years, as a procurement practitioner. Yeah.

And I drove the transformation of the function, and then I led the function for the last couple of years. And so when I think about how our customers can embark on this next phase of the journey and get value from it, it is really about looking at what are we procurement teams responsible for, or the finance teams or the supply chain teams- Mm-hmm ... and how does AI enable us to deliver that better, faster, greater level of intelligence.

Not how is AI going to allow me to reduce headcount or effort. Procurement is an underserved, understaffed function in almost every single company. And because of that, they're not able to drive the level of value they could if they had more time, more focus.

And so for procurement in particular, I see this incredible opportunity for our teams to leverage agents to do some of their work- Mm-hmm ... or drive greater intelligence that allows them to be elevated, to touch more spend, have greater level of business conversations, sit with suppliers and find the right strategic partners for the organization overall. And that ROI is going to be significantly greater because the savings potential, the working capital impact, can drive real bottom dollar outcomes for an organization.

So with that point, that sounds more like workforce empowerment in procurement. Yeah. And I know that that's the conference theme.

I think Lee mentioned it and a bunch of other people. So do you want to expound upon that as well? Because, again, just using AI so you can work better- Yeah ...

and not just think about it as it's something that's going to take my job away, but it really is. It's awesome to make you think more strategic by letting AI taking on the manual work. Yeah.

So yeah. And I think there's a couple of different ways to make that very practical. Mm-hmm.

We think about our agent workforce in an act, assist, and advise, and that is where the agent can actually execute the task, right? That's great. Now we no longer need to do that, so where are we putting our attention?

Or it can assist you in the task, or it can advise you in the task. And we're thoughtful in that because we recognize the agents are going to be part of the team. So I'm a supply chain expert.

Which agent can act on my behalf or assist? I'm a procurement person. Which agent can act on my behalf or assist?

And so that's what we mean or think about when we think about how agents are going to create this workforce empowerment layer- Yeah ... for our teams. And what that looks like on the ground, how does that translate?

One, honestly, it could just give the team more capacity. Mm-hmm. But when we think about the average procurement function, many don't touch tail spend, right?

It's not strategic, it's not high dollar. But there is savings to be made there, there are deeper relationships to be made within that tail spend of suppliers, and there's a risk management value to really digging into that tail spend. And that's just one example of where if we apply agents, we can touch a greater amount of spend, and through that, reduce risk overall to the organization, and greater spend consolidation, and opportunities for partnership with vendors.

And so that's why we're very excited about not what it's going to do to eliminate X number of headcount- Yeah ... it's how you refocus that headcount- Mm ... so that they're able to work on other pieces that honestly they all aspire to, but just can't get the time to.

And when you're talking to customers, how do you change that mindset if people are being a little bit skeptical? They want to believe. What do you say to them?

I think there's a couple of pieces to this. Honestly, I think when I look at procurement teams themselves- Mm ... it doesn't take convincing.

They get it. Right? Genuinely, there isn't a procurement team out there that isn't run ragged, and don't know how much more value they could be driving.

Mm-hmm. So that's number one. When we look at the executives, I again think-Most executives at this point really understand the value of a good procurement function.

Think about an organization and how much of their spend is with third parties. Mm. Think about the value of not only reducing spend, driving greater savings- Yeah ...

but managing those third parties as an extension of your organization. So leaders are getting it, too. And so I genuinely believe most procurement teams and leaders do see AI in procurement as an enabler.

And for the few that don't, the few that are thinking, "I'm going to reduce headcount, and take that money and put it in the bank," procurement teams aren't large enough historically to get significant dollars out of that. So you- It's not going to drive the differentiated outcome. And so I don't think they're actually investing in AI.

I think it's the other two that recognize that the fundamental shift in how it will manage the overall spend portfolio of the organization is why it's a justifiable investment. So you're offering a roadmap from experimentation to measurable. So a lot of organizations seem stuck, well, from what we're hearing, in the experimentation phase.

So what's the single most common reason that they can't break through? For me, this is not a procurement piece. This is fundamentally the tech and where it is.

Mm-hmm. Where there's been a lot of conversations about the art of the possible and the potential for a long time, the tech is now at the point where it's demonstrating that. Yeah.

And I think when we say a lot of people are stuck in experimentation, it is really reflective of that's what technology was capable of. It has turned the corner right now, and so it is ready for full-scale empowerment, workforce enablement, and empowerment. Mm-hmm.

And so now I think the barrier is no longer the technology. It's the willingness to recognize that it can change how you operate. Yeah.

Let's sit down and have a conversation, and we'll support you in determining exactly what that change looks like. So now we get to the chief evangelist. You're the chief evangelist.

I assume that you're the only chief evangelist in Coupa. Yeah. So the word implies that you're trying to change minds.

So who are you most focused in converting right now? I think at this point, the practitioners. Mm.

And again, not because I believe that they're fearful. Mm-hmm. It is really the just get started.

I encourage all of our customers, the agents are in your test environment. Turn them on. We recorded a very simple how-to guide, and it's a three-minute video of how to get started with AI, two minutes of which is fluff.

So it's a one-minute journey. Open the screen, check some boxes. But that's the easy part.

It's then the following agents do the following things. Sit down, draw the process out. Mm-hmm.

Look at how that agent is going to help you within that process. Yeah. And then redraw that process.

And so it is really recognizing that for us to change and get the most value, or sorry, for us to get the most value out of it, we have to be willing to change- Yeah ... and revisit parameters that we maybe didn't think or historically haven't looked at. And so it is getting people excited, getting them reassured that it's not difficult, but then getting them to recognize we're going to have to sit down and make those changes and not only make them once.

Adaptability is going to be key going forward because what we can do now versus what will be capable next year and the year after, this evolution is going to be constant. And so when I think about it, that's the biggest piece that I'm trying to convince our customers of. Have a part of your organization that are fundamentally constantly focused on what the tech is doing- Mm-hmm ...

how it's evolving, and how are those new components going to solve the business problems that you may have now or you're not even aware of now, but you will in six months. Change management and adapting, that's a big get. Well, it's a big change for a lot of people who are so used to doing business the way they do.

So you have a major, major strategy. You got a lot of work cut out for you. Yeah.

I totally agree. So this is not a disagreement point. I think the bit, though, I think change management doesn't serve the phase we're in.

I think it's journey management. Yeah. Because it- Journey management ...

not because change management is the wrong phrase, but unfortunately, it's looked at at a point in time. Yeah. When I operated within the procurement function, I saw the implementation of the technology as just laying the foundation.

When we were finished, that was not success. Mm. That laid the foundation that I continually, and the teams continually nurtured so that we got the outcome we were aspiring to.

That was on simple SaaS. That's even going to be more important when you're operating in an agentic organization. And I think as operators, procurement functions, finance functions, supply chain functions, but and the other function, the importance of having roles that are nurturing your technology, nurturing your agents, and the value you will get from them will be, it's essential, and the value will be undisputable.

Absolutely. Fantastic. We love it.

So any last words as the chief evangelist of Coupa that you want to get a message across? Yeah. I think the biggest piece is Coupa's commitment is not just to build the technology.

Mm. Coupa's commitment is to ensure our customers are using it, and our customers are getting value. And I ask every single customer, show up and let's have the conversation.

Let's embrace this, and through that, we'll be able to demonstrate to you how we believe you can get value- Mm-hmm ... and then support you on that journey to get that value. Trisha Miller, everybody.

I love her energy. Thank you so much- Thank you very much ... for having this conversation.

I really appreciate it. Chief evangelist, everybody. Thank you.

So stay tuned. Coupa Inspire, we have more to come, and we'll see you then.