AI Agents – The Digital Arm That Powers the Future of Business Transactions

Supply chain AI Agent

Thirty years ago, after the launch of Windows, we started developing customized software to solve specific business problems. Over the past three decades, billions of applications have been developed, but they all require humans to operate, analyze data, and make decisions.

Now, AI Agents represent the next evolution—intelligent, autonomous applications that no longer need human intervention. Unlike traditional software, AI Agents can read text, images, audio, and video, understand context, and make real-time decisions based on that.

These AI-powered digital agents analyze situations, automate tasks, and optimize business operations, eliminating repetitive manual work. AI Agents don’t just follow instructions—they learn, adapt, and improve over time, transforming industries and redefining automation.

Let's understand by Example

Current RFQ Processing vs. AI Revolution in Procurement

In Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) projects, procuring thousands of line items is a complex and time-sensitive process. Currently, the Request for Quotation (RFQ) process follows a manual and semi-automated approach:

1. RFQ Creation: The project team generates an RFQ using a web-based procurement portal.
2. Material Identification: Procurement teams manually review material line items, ensuring compliance with project requirements.
3. Vendor Selection: Buyers check past purchase order (PO) history to identify suitable vendors, relying on spreadsheets, ERP systems, or supplier databases.
4. Vendor Outreach: Emails are manually sent to vendors requesting quotations.
5. Follow-ups & Reminders: Procurement teams track vendor acknowledgments and send reminders via emails or phone calls.
6. Quotation Compilation: Once received, vendor quotations are manually consolidated and forwarded for evaluation.

How AI Agents Will Revolutionize RFQ Processing

An AI-powered RFQ Agent will automate and optimize every step of the procurement process, ensuring efficiency, accuracy, and faster decision-making.

?? AI Agent Workflow for RFQ Processing

1?? Real-Time RFQ Detection

AI continuously monitors procurement portals and detects new RFQs instantly. 2?? Automated Data Extraction

AI reads and understands material line items, specifications, and quantities.

Categorizes items based on past procurement records and contract exceptions. 3?? Smart Vendor Identification

AI searches the purchase order database for previously used vendors.

If fewer than 3 vendors are found, AI crawls the web for new suppliers and extracts contact details. 4?? Auto RFQ Drafting

AI generates an RFQ document with complete details.

Sends the draft to the procurement team for approval. 5?? Intelligent Follow-Ups

Once approved, AI sends the RFQ to vendors.

Tracks vendor responses and sends automated reminders if no acknowledgment is received within 24 hours. 6?? Quotation Management & Analysis

AI receives vendor quotations via email and extracts key pricing and terms.

Compiles a summary report for procurement teams, highlighting the best options. 7?? Procurement Decision Support

AI recommends optimal vendor choices based on pricing, contract compliance, and delivery timelines.

Process flow Flow Chat

?? Key Benefits of AI in RFQ Processing

? Reduces Manual Effort – Saves hours of human work by automating RFQ handling. ? Accelerates Procurement – Speeds up vendor identification and response tracking. ? Ensures Compliance – Checks contract exceptions (e.g., country of origin, warranty requirements). ? Improves Supplier Management – Ensures timely vendor engagement and better sourcing. ? Minimizes Errors – Reduces risk by accurately extracting and processing RFQ data.

By eliminating repetitive tasks, improving vendor communication, and enabling real-time decision-making, AI Agents will revolutionize procurement in EPC projects, ensuring a faster and more cost-effective supply chain.

How AI RFQ Agent Will Work – Do We Need to Write Code?

Yes, AI RFQ Agent requires custom coding and integration with databases, procurement systems, email services, and web scrapers. Below is the step-by-step breakdown of how it will work and the technologies needed.

?? Step-by-Step AI RFQ Agent Workflow

1?? Detect New RFQs

Monitor the procurement web portal or RFQ database for new entries.

Technology:

Web Scraping (Selenium, BeautifulSoup)

API Integration (REST API, GraphQL)

SQL Query for RFQ Table Monitoring

2?? Extract RFQ Details

Read RFQ document or database fields and extract material descriptions.

Technology:

NLP (Natural Language Processing) with OpenAI GPT, SpaCy

Document Parsing (OCR for PDFs using Tesseract, PyMuPDF)

SQL Queries for structured data extraction

3?? Identify Vendor Availability

Search in past procurement data to find suitable vendors.

Technology:

SQL Database Search (Vendor Table, PO History)

Machine Learning (Vector Search for Vendor-Material Matching)

4?? Find New Vendors if Needed

If no vendor is found in the database, search the web for suppliers.

Technology:

Web Scraping (Scrapy, BeautifulSoup)

AI-Powered Search (Google Custom Search API, AI Agents for B2B directories)

5?? Generate Draft RFQ & Get Approval

Automatically format the RFQ and send it for procurement team review.

Technology:

Document Automation (Python DOCX, LaTeX, PDFKit)

Email Notification (SMTP, Outlook API, Twilio)

6?? Send RFQ to Vendors

Email RFQs to selected vendors and track email responses.

Technology:

Email Automation (SMTP, Outlook/Gmail API)

Email Tracking (IMAP, Read Receipts)

7?? Follow-Up & Automated Reminders

Check if vendors acknowledge RFQ and send reminders if needed.

Technology:

Cron Jobs / Task Scheduling

AI Chatbots for Vendor Follow-ups (Twilio, WhatsApp API)

8?? Receive & Process Quotations

Collect vendor responses and extract key details.

Technology:

PDF/Excel Parsing (PyPDF2, Pandas, OpenPyXL)

AI Text Analysis (GPT, NLP)

9?? AI-Based Decision Support

Rank vendor quotes based on price, compliance, and delivery terms.

Technology:

AI Ranking Models (Scikit-learn, TensorFlow)

Business Rules Engine (IFTTT, Drools)

?? Do We Need to Write Code?

Yes! The AI RFQ Agent will require custom software development with AI integration. You can build it using:

? Backend: Python (Flask, FastAPI) / Node.js ? Database: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB ? AI/NLP: OpenAI API, Hugging Face Transformers ? Web Scraping: Selenium, BeautifulSoup, Scrapy ? Automation: Apache Airflow, Task Schedulers ? Email & Notifications: SMTP, Outlook API, Twilio

?? Next Steps: Implement AI RFQ Agent

1?? Define the RFQ data structure (Fields to extract). 2?? Set up vendor databases (Existing + AI-based web search). 3?? Develop AI models for text extraction and decision-making. 4?? Integrate email automation for vendor communication. 5?? Deploy AI workflows for RFQ tracking and reminders.

It’s a myth that AI will end the software industry. In reality, AI will create and develop more AI Agents than all the software built in the last 30 years. The industry isn’t disappearing—it’s evolving. AI is simply shifting the skill set of programming, transforming developers into AI trainers, workflow designers, and automation architects."

#SCM #AI #AIAgents