Beyond Efficiency: Ivalua’s Paul Zammit on What Agentic AI Really Changes in Acquisition
World Congress Special Edition: Episode 3
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Recorded live at NCMA's World Congress, this episode brings a perspective The Leading Edge doesn't feature often: the view from inside a software vendor building the tools that power acquisition at scale. Host Nikki Mackay sits down with Paul Zammit, Director of Product Marketing for AI and Platform at Ivalua, whose agentic acquisition software is used by ten U.S. states and major defense contractors alike.
Sitting close to both Ivalua's Chief Product Officer and Chief AI Officer, Paul offers a rare, grounded read on where AI in acquisition actually stands — cutting through the marketing hype to talk about what's genuinely deliverable today. The conversation digs into whether government and defense buyers face fundamentally different barriers to AI adoption or share the same underlying challenges, unpacks what "agentic" really means in practice versus repackaged automation, and pushes past the usual efficiency narrative to explore the dimensions of change in acquisition that aren't getting enough attention.
A candid, vendor's-eye complement to the government and industry voices this series usually features — and a reminder that this shift is about far more than shaving time off a procurement cycle.