Later in the day, Levelpath hosted a session at SIG One-Day Bay Area titled “Surviving the Squeeze: Contract Intelligence for Cost Pressures.” The discussion focused on how procurement teams can address rising costs and financial uncertainty using AI native contract intelligence tools.
The session highlighted the growing impact of external financial pressures on the procurement team. CPOs are now expected to do much more than track spend, they are being asked to proactively manage risk at the contract level. Often, critical clause language related to price increases, CPI adjustments, and tariff shifts are buried in contracts and hard to find without a structured process.
Levelpath shared how its AI-native contract intelligence tools use Optical Character Recognition (OCR), smart search, and metadata tagging to surface this information quickly. Instead of manually reviewing individual files, procurement teams can instantly locate phrases such as “subject to CPI adjustment,” “in the event of a tariff increase,” or “supplier may increase prices due to material cost increases or inflation.” These common clauses, when left undiscovered, can lead to unanticipated cost spikes and strained supplier relationships.
The team also walked through a practical three-part process to improve visibility:
- OCR and Metadata Extraction: Contracts are automatically scanned and key fields are indexed.
- Risk Surfacing with AI Assistant: AI flags potential risks based on clause language.
- Smart Search Across Repositories: Teams can search for specific risk terms across their full contract library.
The takeaway was clear: contract visibility is no longer a nice to have. It is a foundational requirement for cost control and risk management. With the right tools in place, procurement can identify risk sooner, make informed decisions faster, and avoid unexpected budget impacts.