Real-world pilot finds agentic AI delivers $10M in cost savings and 2,000 hours per year in time savings, while reinforcing the role of human expertise.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, UNITED STATES, March 11, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Rivio, the procurement intelligence automation platform, and HEX Advisory Group, a trusted sourcing advisory, today announced a strategic partnership and the release of joint research: Benchmarking with Artificial Intelligence: When AI Meets Real-World Procurement Skepticism.
The research offers one of the first practical assessments of agentic AI in procurement processes, grounded in operational evidence rather than theoretical modeling. While many organizations assume that AI’s highest value is to automate the analytical output of benchmarking, the research suggests the real value is in reducing preparation time by 90% and increasing accuracy.
The partnership compliments this finding. Rivio’s AI procurement agent, Sheldon, is now integrated with the HEX Index®, the foremost tool for accurate benchmarks in the sourcing industry, tightly curated by senior sourcing advisors and providing only contemporary benchmark data from IT, Business Process, and Global Capability Center transactions. Combining the two gives procurement teams negotiation-ready context in minutes rather than weeks.
“The bottleneck in benchmarking has never been the calculation, it’s the preparation and the availability when you really need them,” said Hala Jalwan, Co-Founder & CEO of Rivio. “Integrating Sheldon with the HEX Index® means our customers walk into every negotiation with a depth of market knowledge that used to require a six-figure consulting engagement. That changes the math on what a procurement team can actually accomplish.”
“The advisory industry is largely modeled to benefit from a dependent client, not an autonomous one. HEX disrupts that,” said Sarthak Brahma, Founder and CEO of HEX Advisory Group. “Sheldon, powered by HEX Index®, takes that disruption to its logical conclusion putting practitioner-grade intelligence directly into the hands of procurement teams, on demand. Live benchmarks at the negotiation table, not a stale report from last quarter.”
The joint research is the first in an ongoing series exploring how agentic AI is reshaping procurement strategy and execution.
The research is available for download at https://hexadvisory.com/benchmarking-with-ai/.
About Rivio
Rivio is a San Francisco-based AI technology company built for modern procurement teams that need to make better decisions, faster, and with confidence. Powered by Sheldon, Rivio embeds world-class procurement data and expertise directly into sourcing and negotiation workflows, helping teams capture repeatable savings, expand coverage without adding headcount, and build institutional knowledge that compounds over time. Rivio is backed by Gradient Ventures, MIT, and S32, with strategic advisors from Meta, Apple, and other leading technology companies. Visit rivio.ai.
About HEX Advisory Group
HEX is a coterie of highly tenured sourcing advisors executing some of the largest IT and Business Process sourcing mandates and spend portfolios, including Global Capability Centers (GCCs), for CXOs in the US, the EU, Latin America, and APAC. Our senior advisors execute the sourcing business case, target operating model, RFS-to-contracting process with third-party vendors, manage the associated change, and govern the execution until steady state. The very same HEX advisors then punch in the finalized and winning solution, contract, and pricing tenets into our exhaustive benchmarking database, HEX Index®, thereby ensuring the highest fidelity benchmarks in the industry. Our client CXOs are willing references of our advisory rigor. Visit hexadvisory.com.
Shreya Sinha
Hex Advisory Group
shreya.sinha@hexadvisory.com
Evan Luke
Rivio
evan@rivio.ai
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