“What’s really important is to have teams freed up to do the strategic work.” - Dominic Toselli, Founder and CEO of Aron
Category managers are expected to focus on strategic work, but fragmented data and tactical requests still consume a significant amount of their time. Agentic AI is creating new possibilities for shifting more of that execution away from the individual category manager.
Aron, formerly Negotiate AI, is taking a “digital chief of staff” approach to that problem. We spoke with Dominic Toselli, Founder of Aron, about the thinking behind the platform, how agents can change category management, and where Aron fits within the existing procurement technology landscape.
What problem did you originally set out to solve with Aron?
“When I was at Apple, I think the one thing I found was that procurement is tough. And it's one thing that people don't realize.
Even when I was at Apple, spend visibility was very, very challenging. I felt a lot of the time it was because the systems where procurement gathers that data, even if you have the best architecture set up, a lot of times the business doesn't enter it, and you don't see the visibility.
The second reason, I just found it very tactical. We really want to be as strategic as possible. 80% of my day was just really handling these requests that I felt were very low value at high time cost.
With agents coming on, I thought, really in the future, there should be no reason that a team is staffed to really handle these very tactical requests that are coming through.”
How does Aron approach the role of AI differently?
“With where agents are going in the future, the ideal setup is to have agents really handle as many of the tasks. What we're doing is we're thinking, instead of trying to focus on one particular task, let's just focus on an industry with a problem, a big problem.
The way we're structuring it as a true chief of staff is that the agent can detect these opportunities automatically. It anticipates that there's a shift in the market. It already starts the process and can really tee it up for that category manager.
Upon approval, it can do that entire thing. So really the category manager is sitting in a much more elevated strategic position where they're not having to really do that work, and it enables them to cover a significant amount more than they could otherwise.”
What have customers told you they value most?
“What I found was, while customers really do want to see ROI very quickly, within a month on proof to be able to showcase to a CFO or their leadership, what's really important is to actually have their teams freed up to do the strategic work.
And even more so, be able to cover a significant amount more ground strategically without having to hire an additional force.”
Where does Aron fit within an existing procurement tech stack?
“Just like when you're hiring a procurement individual, whether you're not as mature of a company, or you're very mature and have different systems, it doesn't matter. You can basically position that person there. Exact same way with Aron.
For larger companies where they have a tech stack, it also doesn't matter. Sometimes we fit in with, ‘We've been trying to tackle a very difficult area where there's no solution.’ So we've had great entries on MRO, for example. But other times, it's just, ‘We need extra support and added efficiency across the category management base.’
Because we're very AI native, we can even adapt a lot of the flows and behaviors to fit in the tech stack.”
What does a true AI agent look like in practice for a category manager?
“Right now the industry kind of has been like, ‘Let the user figure it out, type it in.’ And it's almost a co-pilot-based experience. And really, that's not what a worker does. A worker anticipates, has agency, which means that they do the work. That is the beauty of agents.
Similarly, that's what Aron is. It's your ultimate chief of staff that can do it.
All you really need at the end of the day, if you had a chief of staff, is just saying, ‘Hey, Phil, listen, this is what the business requester did.’ It can handle certain tasks without intervention. Or you can say, ‘I've done the work. This is the analysis. These are the options, A or B. I recommend A.’
You ultimately can feel in control of your space and say, ‘What more can I take on?’”