For modern businesses, gaining value and cutting costs extends to every area of operations--including how they pay their bills. As automation, artificial intelligence, and the digital transformations they support become an increasingly common and important part of effective business process management, automating the accounts payable (AP) function has become a popular first step in achieving greater efficiency, value, and performance. The next step--leveraging artificial intelligence in accounts payable--holds the potential to increase these gains and help organizations of all sizes and types achieve true, end-to-end AP automation. Understanding the importance of advanced artificial intelligence in accounts payable, and adding it to your overall AP optimization paradigm, can help your business meet its goals more effectively while helping to lay a foundation for full digital transformation. Traditionally, AP processes follow the same basic pattern, regardless of industry.

SpendEdge, a leading provider of procurement market intelligence solutions, has announced the completion of their latest article on the impact of AI in procurement functions. This press release features multimedia. Artificial intelligence possesses the potential to support key businesses processes and procurement is no exception. It can improve the forecasting accuracy of end-customer demand for finished goods and material requirements by improving the efficiency of procurement organizations. Also, the use of AI in procurement can help optimize resources, develop pricing initiatives, and transform every single business function.

We hear a lot about how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are disrupting the future of work, but very often this is a high-level narrative that doesn't dive into specifics in terms of the enterprise business functions being most impacted. In this article, we'll look specifically at the procurement function to examine how and where business processes are being transformed – and even disrupted – and some of the most impactful technologies involved. These include AI/ML, predictive analytics, blockchain and IoT, as well as AR/VR and intelligent agents. While procurement might be one of the last places you'd expect to find digital transformation, the fact is that it's well underway and a sizable organisational opportunity for unlocking cost savings and operational efficiencies. By way of example, the Ariba Network supports over 3.4 million companies in over 190 countries and conducts over $2.1 trillion in commerce annually.

When it comes to automating processes, procurement organizations are no slouches. Long ago, chief procurement officers automated administration, payroll processing, material-resource needs calculation, invoice generation, and material flow tracking. The function has, for the most part, eliminated redundant work to dedicate more time toward more strategic activity and transitioned the collaboration to business networks. Yet, exception handling seems to be at an all-time high as companies try to get a better handle on their suppliers and partners to gain a competitive edge. AndProcurement professionals are now stretched to their limit, bombarded with a steady stream of requests – each one requiring analysis of massive volumes of documents.

Artificial Lawyer caught up with Cian O'Sullivan, founder of Beagle, the automated contract analysis system that is just celebrating a year and a half of operations and landing VW as a client. We discussed how Beagle came about, why maybe sometimes it's better not to talk to lawyers about AI and how come the company has one of the world's largest auto companies as a client, and then some. Cian O'Sullivan's web camera is not working when Artificial Lawyer calls for a video conference and so is treated to a picture of a soccer pitch in Colombia that the legal tech company founder took on his travels. The international reference makes sense once you start to talk to O'Sullivan. The Canadian travels a lot.

Back in 1999, I read a great book by Bruce Sterling called "Distraction"; billed as a fictional view into the status of U.S. public service in the year 2044, the technology and cultural ideas packed into that book still resonate more than 15 years later. The book in part motivated me to strive to make a difference in public service, if only to avoid some of the more dystonia views in the book. Apparently I'm not the only one who found the book packed with ideas, Cory Doctorow also wrote a great review in 2008. The book's central premise: that all of us could suffer from "Distraction" from what really matters, especially in a world with 300 cable channels, 24/7 news, and always-on social media in the United States, is an idea that I'd like to explore more fully given our rapidly changing world of today. Technology is amoral, it is how we humans choose to use it that determines good vs. bad outcomes.