How Lio's AI Agents are Freeing up Procurement Teams

Lio (formerly askLio) is building the world's most advanced AI procurement workforce for global enterprises. By replacing tedious manual workflows with a coordinated network of specialised AI agents, Lio has the power to fundamentally transform how businesses approach buying.

Every single purchase request is deployed to autonomous digital agents working entirely in parallel. While one agent instantly researches the best vendors, others simultaneously negotiate contract terms, manage internal approvals and track deliveries. What once consumed valuable hours is now executed flawlessly and concurrently by a synchronised digital workforce.

Earlier in 2026, the company announced a US$30m Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from SV Angels, Harry Stebbings and Y Combinator. The new capital brings Lio's total funding to US$33m and is being used to accelerate product development and support its expansion into the US.

Writing when the funding was announced, Vladimir Keil, CEO of Lio, explains why the problem Lio is solving is so deeply embedded in how large enterprises operate.

The scale of the problem

Vladimir outlines that, every year, large corporations spend trillions of dollars buying everything from raw materials and professional services to IT infrastructure and office supplies.

The volume flowing through enterprise procurement departments is staggering: at a single Fortune 500 company, a procurement organisation might manage tens of thousands of suppliers, hundreds of thousands of transactions and billions of dollars in annual spend. Yet buying something inside one of these companies can still take weeks.

Vladimir illustrates the problem through the eyes of a procurement manager on a typical Monday morning, working through 40 open purchase requests. One is for a speciality chemical requiring hazmat compliance documentation; another is a consulting engagement needing three competitive bids; a third is a rush order for back-ordered replacement parts.

Each request means opening the ERP or eProcurement system, checking the contract management system, searching the supplier database, pulling up compliance checklists, cross-referencing budget approvals, digging through email for the latest quotes and visiting supplier websites directly.

"If you're lucky," Vladimir says, "by Friday maybe half that queue has been resolved. Next Monday, there'll be 40 more in your inbox."

He puts a figure on the imbalance this creates: enterprises spend more than US$180bn a year on procurement talent, against just US$10bn on procurement software.

Why Lio rejects the old assumption

For Vladimir, the root cause is a false assumption built into every previous generation of procurement technology.

"Every previous generation of procurement technology was built on the same assumption: that humans will do the work, and technology will help them do it faster," adds Vladimir. "We reject that assumption. Not because we want to eliminate procurement professionals, but because those professionals are wasting their talent on work that machines can now do better."

Lio's agents are designed to sit on top of a company's existing systems, including ERPs, systems of record, email and contracts, rather than becoming another tool staff have to learn.

When an employee submits a purchase request in natural language, a Lio agent classifies it, identifies the right category and supplier pool, pulls up relevant contracts and pricing history, requests and analyses quotes, checks compliance, routes approvals, negotiates terms and executes the purchase – in effect carrying out the full role of a human procurement manager.

What freeing up teams looks like in practice

Lio's agents are already managing billions of dollars in enterprise spend across dozens of Global 2000 and Fortune 500 companies, spanning manufacturing, reinsurance and heavy industry.

The company reports a 95% adoption rate among users, an 85% reduction in manual work and 10% incremental savings through improved sourcing and negotiation, alongside what it describes as 100% customer retention.

One global manufacturer is said to have automated 75% of its previously outsourced procurement work within six months, freeing the equivalent of ten full-time employees.

From Vladimir's perspective, procurement teams scale not by adding headcount or more software licences, but by managing an AI workforce that handles the machine-ready tasks, leaving people free to focus on the strategic decisions that require human judgement.

He concludes: "Instead of spending most of their time processing requests and paperwork, teams can run more negotiations, analyse more suppliers and capture savings opportunities that would otherwise be missed."