Short answer — best-in-class AI procurement tools depend on the use case. Below are recommended vendors grouped by what they do best (sourcing, source‑to‑pay / total‑spend, contract lifecycle, supplier risk/onboarding, analytics and specialist AI agents), with one-line reasons and sources so you can follow up.

Top picks by use-case

• Total‑spend / Source‑to‑Pay (S2P) platforms — strong enterprise AI + global support

  • Coupa — market-leading total spend management with a growing AI/agent story and APAC presence (Melbourne/Sydney). (Coupa.com)
  • SAP Ariba (SAP Business Network) — widely used in Australia (large public-sector customers) and adding sovereign‑cloud / local data options. (itnews.com.au)
  • Ivalua — very flexible S2C / S2P platform for organizations needing customization and complex sourcing. (clickup.com)

• AI-driven spend intelligence & automation

  • Zycus (Merlin) — agentic AI for intake, autonomous negotiation and spend intelligence across source‑to‑pay. (Zycus.com)
  • Sievo / Rosslyn (analytics vendors) — strong for consolidated spend analytics and savings tracking. (clickup.com)

• Autonomous / AI sourcing and tactical sourcing automation

  • Fairmarkit — autonomous sourcing agents for scaling sourcing of tail and tactical spend. (fairmarkit.com)
  • Keelvar — AI Sourcing Optimizer for complex e‑auctions and multi‑criteria awards (non‑price factors like sustainability). (Keelvar.com)

• Contract lifecycle & clause intelligence (CLM)

  • Evisort (Workday/Evisort) — AI‑native CLM, strong contract analytics and Gartner-recognized. Good for surfacing obligations/risks. (prnewswire.com)
  • Conga / Icertis — other enterprise CLM leaders with advanced contract AI capabilities. (clickup.com)

• Supplier onboarding, risk & compliance

  • Certa — supplier onboarding, compliance orchestration and third‑party risk automation. (trustedby.ai)
  • Riskmethods / RapidRatings / Dun & Bradstreet — market intelligence and financial/risk scoring for suppliers. (procuretech.ai)

• Work-management & AI copilots that touch procurement

  • ClickUp (ClickUp Brain) — emerging as an AI assistant that can summarize bids, extract contract terms and help procurement workflows for smaller teams or to augment an ERP. (clickup.com)

Why these (short rationale)

• Large S2P vendors (Coupa, SAP Ariba, Ivalua, GEP) give end‑to‑end visibility, marketplace/supplier integrations and are rapidly embedding GenAI/agent capabilities. Use them if you need enterprise scale, lots of integration points, and supplier network effects. (Coupa.com)
• Best‑of‑breed AI firms (Fairmarkit, Keelvar, Zycus, Evisort) let you add agentic AI or advanced analytics to specific areas (sourcing, negotiation, CLM, spend insights) without replacing your whole ERP. (fairmarkit.com)

Quick evaluation checklist (to pick the “best” for your org)

• Use case: sourcing, CLM, spend analytics, supplier risk, or full S2P? Pick category leaders above.
• Integrations & ERP fit: confirm prebuilt adapters for SAP, Oracle, MS Dynamics, Workday.
• Data residency & compliance: if Australian public sector / regulated data, confirm local cloud / sovereign options. (SAP publicly announced ANZ sovereign cloud moves.) (news.SAP.com)
• AI governance & explainability: ask vendors how models were trained, whether you can audit suggestions, and how they handle PII. (Gartner expects AI to be mainstream in procurement by 2027 — plan governance accordingly.) (gartner.com)
• Pilot & ROI metrics: pilot on a high-volume category (tail spend, contract review) and measure cycle time, touchless invoice %, and savings capture.

How others are using AI in procurement (examples / outcomes)

• Autonomous sourcing agents can cut sourcing cycle times and let teams manage more events per buyer. (fairmarkit.com)
• AI CLM can surface renewal/penalty clauses and hidden obligations to reduce risk and recover value. (prnewswire.com)

Concise recommendation (if you want a one-line pick)

• For a full enterprise S2P with local APAC support: evaluate Coupa and SAP Ariba first. (Coupa.com)
• For fast AI sourcing wins without replacing core systems: trial Fairmarkit or Keelvar. (fairmarkit.com)
• For contract‑centric value (risk, obligations, savings): pilot Evisort. (prnewswire.com)

If you want, I can:

• produce a one‑page shortlist tailored to your company size, tech stack (ERP), and the top three procurement problems you want solved (savings, cycle time, risk), or
• provide a sample RFP/pilot scope to evaluate 3 vendors in 8 weeks.

(References used: vendor product pages and market articles cited inline above.)