Pactum

All businesses buy, and all buyers negotiate. Yet as software continues to integrate itself into large swathes of the day-to-day running of businesses across the world, the art of negotiation remains mostly untouched. Popular understanding of negotiation holds that both parties engage in a tense back and forth until something gives and an agreement is struck. And much of the conventional negotiation wisdom is drawn from tense conflict situations (think of the Hollywood version of a “Negotiator”).

But is commercial negotiation really a zero sum game?

For example, can the objectives of a large company with many contracts be reconciled with those of it’s smaller suppliers? These were the questions that Kaspar, Kristjan, Martin and the rest of the team at Pactum set out to explore in 2019. They found that current negotiation practices are filled with inefficiency, uncertainty, and untapped value. Since then, they have been hard at work creating an AI-based platform that addresses these problems, by enabling global companies to automate personalised commercial negotiation at scale.

We see AI everywhere in business, but current applications tend to focus solely on incremental efficiency gains. Pactum’s approach is different: by focusing its platform on revenue generation rather than simple savings, the firm uses AI to create genuine value.