As technology ecosystems become increasingly complex, procurement and sourcing professionals must navigate a growing range of contractual agreements beyond the traditional MSA. This session explores the key provisions within Data Processing Agreements (DPAs), Master Service Agreements (MSAs), Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and Business Associate Agreements (BAAs), helping practitioners understand where commercial, legal, and operational risks often reside. The discussion will also examine how AI-powered tools can support contract analysis, identify risk exposures, and strengthen negotiation strategies.

• Identify the most critical clauses across DPAs, MSAs, SLAs, and BAAs, including liability, indemnification, security obligations, data privacy, and breach management.
• Develop practical negotiation strategies to reduce contractual risk while protecting business, compliance, and operational objectives.
• Understand how AI can accelerate contract reviews, surface hidden risks, benchmark clauses, and provide data-driven insights during negotiations.

David W. Tollen, Trainer & Founder, Tech Contracts Academy

As organizations increasingly adopt general-purpose AI tools such as Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude, procurement leaders are questioning whether the growing number of AI-native sourcing and procurement solutions deliver enough incremental value to justify their additional cost. This session moves beyond vendor marketing claims to examine real-world experiences from practitioners who have evaluated, implemented, and measured both approaches. Attendees will gain practical insights into where general AI tools are sufficient, where specialized solutions create meaningful differentiation, and how to make smarter investment decisions in a crowded AI marketplace. · Evaluate when general-purpose AI tools can effectively support sourcing and procurement activities, and where specialized point solutions provide additional value.

· Understand the use cases, capabilities, and limitations of both approaches across the Source-to-Contract lifecycle, including research, negotiations, contract review, and supplier management.

· Learn how organizations have assessed ROI, built business cases, and validated whether AI point solutions delivered benefits that could not be achieved with general AI tools alone.

· Develop a framework for selecting, testing, and governing AI investments to balance innovation, cost, productivity gains, and long-term value.

Andy Mayer, Director, IT Sourcing and Vendor Management, Post Holdings

Moderator: Kartik Pattisam, Procurement & AI Strategy

Amal Bhatt, Sourcing Director, Lam Research

Signing the contract is only the beginning. Vertice’s own research into post-signature spend found that more than 10% of contract value can leak away after a deal closes – and that risk multiplies when spend isn’t fixed, but tracks to usage: tokens, seats, API calls, and AI features quietly embedded inside tools teams already have.

This peer discussion moves beyond one-time negotiation and into the ongoing discipline of running AI and SaaS consumption spend day to day. Participants will compare how they’re building ownership, visibility and guardrails as AI adoption scales – and where control is breaking down before procurement even gets a seat at the table.

• Owning consumption budgets: Once an AI tool goes live, who actually holds the budget – IT, finance, or the requesting team – and who’s accountable when usage climbs past plan?
• Getting AI requests into procurement: What’s the real path a new AI tool or feature takes before procurement even sees it, and what makes a request bypass that path entirely?
• Buying with pricing literacy: How is knowledge of AI pricing models – token-based, seat-based, usage tiers, hybrid commitments – getting built into evaluation and negotiation, instead of being discovered after go-live?
• Catching shadow AI: Where does AI spend enter the business outside procurement’s view – personal sign-ups, AI features switched on inside existing SaaS, free trials that quietly convert – and what’s actually catching it today?
• Responding to changing usage: What happens when consumption overshoots forecast, or committed capacity goes unused? How are alerts, escalation and adjustment rights handled?
• Preparing for renewal: What usage evidence and internal decisions need to be ready before an AI or consumption-based renewal window opens?

Takeaway

Peer-tested approaches to owning AI and SaaS consumption spend, catching it before it becomes shadow spend, and turning usage data into leverage at renewal.

Trisha Collier, Head of Procurement, Sophos

Joanna Marks, Sr Partner, Sourcing, Dignify

Rebekah Brouwer, Strategic Sourcing Manager, Coinbase

Michael Keller, Procurement Director, Vertice