How METIS works
Four steps from a request to an issued purchase order, run by specialised AI agents rather than by a queue of people. This is what happens between someone asking for something and the PO being raised.
Agent-to-agent negotiation
You set the guardrails. The agents do the rounds. Buyer AI and Supplier AI exchange offers inside limits you fix in advance, and stop the moment the package sits inside them.
Thank you for the revised position. We can move to AED 5,850 with delivery in 5 days on Net 30.
We are close. We propose AED 5,700 with 4-day delivery, which reflects the volume committed and keeps payment terms unchanged.
The remaining gap is AED 25. We propose AED 5,725 as a fair split, with 4-day delivery and Net 30.
Accepted: AED 5,725 total landed, delivery within 4 days, payment terms Net 30. Proceeding to purchase order.
You fix the limits first
Target price, walk-away price, latest acceptable delivery and payment terms. The AI cannot accept anything outside them, so the worst outcome is no deal rather than a bad one.
The agents run the rounds
Up to 20 moves, each with a written rationale you can read. Most settle in single figures.
You see the whole exchange
Every offer, counter and reason is logged. The negotiation is auditable afterwards, which is what makes it usable in a governed procurement function.
It stops when it should
When the package is inside your guardrails it stops and hands you a decision, rather than negotiating for the sake of it.
Ask for it in plain language
Describe what you need the way you would to a colleague. No category codes, no form built for procurement's convenience.
"I need 40 cartons of packaging tape delivered to the Dubai warehouse before the end of the month, same spec as last time."
Already under contract? Use the catalog
For anything already under contract, the catalog is the fastest route: search, add to cart, done. Contracted pricing, known lead times, and no sourcing event needed for a box of tape.
The problem this solves
Tail spend is not hard because the items are complicated. It is hard because there are thousands of small requests, each needing a supplier found, a quote gathered, a price challenged and an approval routed, and no procurement team is staffed to do that properly at that volume.
So it gets done badly or not at all. Requests go to whoever was used last time, prices go unchallenged, and the spend sits outside any contract. METIS runs the same process a good buyer would, on every request, at a volume no team could staff.
Request to purchase order, in four steps
Raise a request
In plain language, as a forwarded email, or as a file. METIS reads PDF, Excel, Word and a pasted bill of quantities, and extracts structured requirements from any of them. The requester does not have to know a category code or fill in a form built for procurement's convenience.
Source and RFQ
Supplier discovery searches, verifies and scores matched suppliers, enriching profiles with contacts, capabilities and risk ratings. It then writes a complete RFQ, including specifications, clarifying questions and evaluation criteria, in seconds rather than in the days it takes a person.
Negotiate and recommend
Autonomous negotiation benchmarks market rates, models supplier behaviour and executes multi-round counter-offers. Every bid is then scored against your criteria and reduced to one recommendation with a documented rationale, so the decision is reviewable rather than a black box.
Approve and issue the PO
The recommendation routes through your own approval thresholds and delegation of authority, and the purchase order is issued with a full audit trail behind it. Governance is enforced by the system rather than depending on whether anyone remembered the policy.
What the agents do
Supplier discovery
Searches, verifies and scores suppliers automatically, enriching profiles with contacts, capabilities and risk ratings.
RFQ generation
Writes complete RFQ documents including specifications, clarifying questions and evaluation criteria.
Autonomous negotiation
Reads market rates, analyses supplier behaviour and executes counter-offers, securing better terms without human intervention.
Proposal scoring
Evaluates every bid across your criteria and surfaces a clear recommendation with a documented rationale.
Predictive analytics
Learns your patterns, forecasts upcoming needs and flags consolidation opportunities before you ask.
Governance and compliance
Configurable approval flows, policy enforcement and full audit trails tuned to your governance requirements.
The intelligence underneath
Four engines direct the agents.
Spend intelligence
Continuously maps every transaction to category, supplier and policy, surfacing leakage and consolidation opportunities in real time.
Requirement intelligence
Extracts structured requirements from any input: plain text, documents, emails or a bill of quantities.
Negotiation intelligence
Benchmarks market rates and models supplier behaviour to run multi-round, competitive negotiations on your behalf.
Predictive procurement
Forecasts demand and flags what you will need next, so sourcing starts before the request lands.
Questions we get asked
How long does it take to go live?
Under 72 hours for a standard deployment. There is no data migration to wait for, because METIS reads the requests you already send rather than requiring you to restructure your catalogue first.
Does it replace our ERP?
No. METIS sits over the tail, where your ERP is weakest, and integrates with it. The purchase order lands in the system you already run, with punchout into the supplier network.
What stops an AI agent buying something it should not?
Your approval thresholds and delegation of authority, enforced by the system on every request rather than depending on whether anyone remembered the policy. Autonomy is configurable: some clients let agents run end to end under a value threshold, others keep a human approval on everything.
How is this different from a marketplace or a punchout catalogue?
A catalogue gives you a price someone negotiated once. METIS runs a fresh, competitive process on the request in front of it, which is what actually moves tail spend pricing.
What if the requirement is unclear?
The RFQ includes clarifying questions, and requirement intelligence flags where a specification is too vague to price. An ambiguous requirement priced by four suppliers produces four incomparable quotes, which is the usual reason tail sourcing wastes everyone's time.