Negotiation preparation in procurement has traditionally been a labor- and time-intensive process involving multiple team members and requiring a significant number of repetitive tasks. The rote (and highly manual) nature of this work can leave procurement feeling overwhelmed and undervalued, with little time to focus on creating strategic value. Many teams also lack the specialized expertise that would be required to scale negotiation preparation effectively.
In this episode of AOP Introducing, Philip Ideson speaks with Erwann Couesbot, Co-founder and CEO of FlipThrough, about how his company is transforming indirect procurement using autonomous AI agents that handle all the elements of supplier evaluation and contract negotiation with speed and accuracy.
FlipThrough addresses a key gap that Erwann says he’s observed throughout his career in strategic sourcing and complex value negotiations. As he explained, “My background was in advising large organizations on strategic sourcing and complex value negotiations. So over the years, I kept seeing the same issues: fewer document reviews and constant struggle.” Because of his firsthand experience with procurement pain points around negotiations, Erwann recognized that traditional approaches were no longer sufficient for modern procurement teams.
The inspiration for FlipThrough, said Erwann, came from a clear realization about the market opportunity: “There's no way GenAI cannot address this. And there is no true autonomous solution to actually negotiate and evaluate proposals on behalf of the team.” Erwann points out that even Fortune 500 companies with access to existing procurement tools still rely heavily on manual human work for critical negotiation and evaluation processes.
FlipThrough differentiates itself as what Erwann describes as “a fully autonomous platform of agents focused on transforming indirect procurement. We help teams evaluate vendors and negotiate contracts.” The platform combines intelligent agreement management, autonomous supplier proposal analysis, and what they refer to as “agentic negotiations.” FlipThrough also offers the first voice-activated negotiation capability in procurement, allowing teams to delegate real negotiations to AI rather than simple chatbot interactions.
The platform is unique because it operates through multiple specialized sub-agents that work together during negotiations. For example, one agent specializes in game theory applications for negotiations, while others focus on understanding internal leverage points, supplier leverage positions, and specific objectives for each negotiation. This kind of AI-powered tag-team approach allows for support during actual supplier conversations, providing counters, insights, and strategic guidance as negotiations unfold in real time.
What sets FlipThrough apart from traditional procurement tools is the speed and ease of implementation. According to Erwann, “something that would take hours of work, maybe days, multiple people in terms of negotiation prep and having market intelligence and so forth, everything happens within three minutes or less.” The platform also integrates seamlessly into existing workflows without requiring complex integrations, working within familiar tools like Outlook, Teams, and Zoom.
Central to FlipThrough's value delivery is what the company calls its “expert in the loop” training. Rather than relying solely on AI-generated insights, FlipThrough incorporates knowledge from both internal and external human experts to train their AI systems. This approach means that outputs reflect the quality and insight that human experts would provide, but they’re delivered much faster and at a fraction of the cost.
The impact this can have on procurement’s performance is substantial. For example, Erwann shared feedback from a CPO who noted that while it typically “takes maybe a year, two years to have my procurement folks being able to go on negotiation,” with FlipThrough’s support, “five to six months would be enough as long as they get the support from people.” This acceleration of capability development addresses both labor arbitrage opportunities and the challenge of developing negotiation expertise within procurement teams.
Faster negotiation preparation is a high priority, but it isn’t the only benefit that FlipThrough provides. Organizations can see immediate improvements in their ability to assess contract risks, develop junior staff capabilities more quickly, and handle complex negotiations with greater confidence. The platform's ability to provide expert-level guidance while integrating seamlessly into existing workflows means teams can focus on strategic decision-making rather than administrative preparation.
In the future, FlipThrough plans on developing an RFP agent to assist with drafting requests for proposals and analyzing supplier responses. The company is also working on proactive guidance capabilities that will provide recommendations around licensing optimization, supplier consolidation opportunities, and strategic procurement decisions based on comprehensive data analysis.
As FlipThrough continues to evolve toward more proactive strategic guidance, the potential for transforming how procurement teams operate becomes even more significant. “The output that you get from the AI is not just average content from the AI or hallucinations. It really just is the content that a human expert would give you, but now it's seamless at a fraction of the cost.”
