Ivalua launched IVA Studio on June 12, 2026, an AI control tower designed to manage source-to-pay processes through a single agent. The system allows procurement departments to execute tasks immediately by embedding governance and existing platform data directly into the agent's operations.
How the control tower operates
IVA Studio manages the IVA agent's skills, permissions, tools, and Model Context Protocol integrations. A category manager can instruct the agent to pull an expiring contract and benchmark it against current agreements. The manager can then identify stronger suppliers and launch an RFx event in a single conversation.
Accounts payable teams can also use the agent to validate incoming invoices against buried contract terms, rather than just price and purchase orders. The agent operates autonomously in the background when triggered by specific events. For example, a supplier risk alert can prompt IVA to surface every affected contract and open a purchase order. The agent will then create a mitigation plan and propose alternative suppliers.
Governance and platform integration
Ivalua enforces governance at the platform level rather than relying on the agent itself. IVA inherits the exact permissions of the user who invokes it and cannot exceed those boundaries. When operating autonomously, the agent follows a designated accountable user and relies on human-in-the-loop controls, with every action logged in a continuous audit trail.
"Procurement teams have typically had to spend time building and configuring AI agents before seeing any results," said David Khuat-Duy, founder and chief AI officer at Ivalua. "Ivalua's approach is entirely different: IVA accesses the Ivalua platform as its toolset and source of knowledge, so procurement can start getting value from day one, within a framework of governance that's enforced by design."
Institutional knowledge and skills
Organizations can teach IVA specific sourcing approaches, negotiation strategies, and compliance rules. These defined skills convert individual expertise into team capabilities, supporting broader departmental efforts in AI Agents & Automation. A new hire working with the agent operates with the benefit of the entire organization's historical data, while the system maintains memory of interactions to self-improve automatically.
"At Ivalua, we believe the future of procurement is not AI; it's people using AI to deliver better and faster results," said Franck Lheureux, CEO of Ivalua. "With IVA, procurement teams can focus on what they do best: building strategies and relationships, internally and externally."
Why this matters for managers
Procurement leaders gain a verifiable audit trail for automated decisions, removing the compliance risks often associated with autonomous agents. By embedding the agent within existing platform permissions, managers can deploy the technology immediately while retaining strict control over user boundaries and human oversight.
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