Contract management is shifting from a back-office function to a strategic priority as AI and automation make contract data visible at scale. The change will take center stage at Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE 2026 in London on 8-9 September, where Nina Kivioja, Vice President of Sourcing, Indirect Materials and Services at UPM, will lead a session on autonomous contract management.
The technology that changes the game
For years, obligations, risks, renewal windows and supplier performance clauses sat trapped inside contracts, invisible to procurement teams. Autonomous technologies now read contracts in volume, pull structured data from unstructured text, flag anomalies and connect contract data to live supplier performance metrics. The tools exist to do what manual processes never could.
Sam Pemberton, CEO of Skill Dynamics, said: "Tomorrow's CPO needs to understand that confidence in technology adoption isn't the same as the capability to govern it. Those who will succeed are the ones willing to continuously develop their own skills, get genuinely familiar with tools like AI, and build the commercial judgment that no algorithm can currently replicate. Procurement has always demanded breadth. That hasn't changed; it has only become more urgent."
What the session will cover
Kivioja's talk will examine how AI, automation and advanced analytics improve visibility, reduce risk and unlock value from contract data across the entire lifecycle. She will share practical insights on building contract management frameworks that support compliance, efficiency and stronger supplier relationships-frameworks that hold up when a contract is tested.
The session arrives at a time when the contract management conversation has genuinely shifted. The organisations getting the most from contract AI are those that first address harder questions about data quality, governance and what compliance means in practice.
The event context
Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE runs alongside Supply Chain LIVE and Sustainability LIVE, drawing senior leaders from procurement, supply chain and sustainability. These are the people who decide how their organisations invest in and operationalise the next generation of contract management capability. The autonomous contract management panel takes place on Day 1, with additional speakers still to be announced.
Why this matters for management
Technology alone does not deliver strategic value. Leaders must build the internal frameworks-data quality standards, governance structures, skill development plans-that let AI tools deliver on their promise. The session offers a grounded, systems-level view of what it takes to turn contract data into a genuine competitive asset, not just another automation project.
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