askLio: Building 'World’s First AI Procurement Workforce'

Procurement has seen the emergence of AI agents designed to support specific roles within organisations, working alongside humans to strengthen the function.

askLio is taking things one step further by proposing a coordinated team of AI agents working in unison to deliver world-class procurement.

Drawing on billions of data points, the platform provides continuous procurement support through a virtual team operating around the clock. By automating routine tasks, it enables procurement teams to focus on strategic priorities.

askLio: The efficiency revolution

askLio's procurement agent showcases a dramatic efficiency gain: what once could have taken weeks now happens in five minutes. Rather than navigating forms and coordinating via email, users simply converse with a natural-language assistant that gathers necessary information and automatically creates a structured purchase request.

The system then deploys specialised agents: sourcing agents identify competitive offers; negotiation agents refine terms; and compliance agents verify adherence to company policies.

This approach addresses a universal pain point – the tedious cycle of manual data entry and endless back-and-forth emails that drain productivity from procurement teams and requesters alike.

askLio's AI Agents handle repetitive daily activities while supporting strategic initiatives like an additional team member, directly enhancing productivity and reducing costs. The solution maintains enterprise-grade security and full GDPR compliance.

What's more, the tool integrates with existing P2P and ERP systems, allowing for the technology to get started straight away.

How askLio has given TÜV SÜD a single source of truth

As experienced procurement staff members retire, companies face the issue of training new staff to their guidelines. This can result in valuable time being lost to searching SharePoint, asking colleagues and digging through old notes.

However, for TÜV SÜD, that frustration is now a thing of the past. With askLio, the public safety organisation has reduced the impact of technological risks, protecting people, assets and the environment.

Today, procurement professionals at TÜV SÜD simply open a conversation with, 'Hey Lio – what applies in this case?' Within seconds, they receive a verified, accurate answer drawn from the company's institutional knowledge base.

The transformation came through Lio X, an AI agent trained on TÜV SÜD's internal procurement expertise. The company fed the system years of accumulated wisdom: internal meeting notes, self-recorded procurement podcasts and company-specific policies.

The result is a single source of truth that understands context and delivers relevant answers.

Vladimir Keil, CEO & Co-Founder at askLio, says: "This isn't about replacing human expertise. It's about amplifying it, ensuring that everyone has access to collective wisdom so they can focus on the strategic, creative work that requires human judgment."

This shift has freed TÜV SÜD's procurement teams to focus on high-value work such as strategic supplier management, sustainable risk reduction and the continued AI enablement of procurement processes. This means no more juggling 50 folders or keeping 20 browser tabs open just to answer a basic question.

As experienced professionals retire or move on, their expertise remains embedded in the system, ready to guide the next generation.

Tobias Mogler, Head of Global Strategic Procurement at TÜV SÜD, adds: "As a recommendation for colleagues who also want to tackle the topic of AI in procurement, it is important to take processes and cluster and structure them in such a way that they could also be handled by student workers, because they can also be taken over by AI in the future. Just like askLio does for us."

askLio: The key stats

• Reduction of manual work: 85% of procurement operations are done by Lio Agents, freeing your team from repetitive tasks.
  
• Additional savings: Through automated negotiations and intelligent spend optimisation, our customers generate an average of 10% additional cost savings.
  
• Adoption rate: Over 95% of procurement requests now flow through askLio's standardised, compliant processes, eliminating non-compliant spending and ensuring policy adherence across the organisation.
  
• Retention rate: Not a single customer has churned since we started—they stay because the value is undeniable and the system becomes mission-critical to their operations.
  
• Users: In less than two years, askLio has grown to 500,000+ users across 100+ enterprises.
  
• Enterprise clients: Leading global enterprises trust askLio to run their procurement operations.
  
• Integration: askLio can be integrated in less than two weeks, including approvals, implementation, training and hypercare.