How Procurement is Made Simple With AI
AI in procurement has quickly moved from promise to practice. Once seen as experimental, it is now part of the everyday toolkit for suppliers who want to work faster, with more precision, and with a clearer view of opportunities.
At Mercell, we’ve taken a deliberate approach to this shift. Over the past year, we’ve launched three AI services in our platform — Better Tender Matching, Tender Summarisation, and the AI-powered Profile Builder — all designed to help suppliers cut through complexity, save time, and never miss a relevant opportunity.
As Daniel Ammann, Product Director at Mercell, explains: “AI is great at cutting through complexity. Public procurement generates vast amounts of data, and we can use AI to analyse all of it quickly and surface the tenders that really matter.” For suppliers, this means less guesswork, simpler profile setup, and more time spent preparing strong bids instead of searching.
In this article, Daniel Ammann, shares how far we’ve come, why we’ve chosen the focus areas we have, and what’s on the horizon for AI in procurement.
Data at the core of AI
Not all AI in procurement is created equal, the quality of results depends entirely on the quality and relevance of the data it’s trained on.
What sets us apart is the depth and quality of procurement data that powers our platform,” Daniel explains. “Mercell has been a player in public procurement for many years. We have the most extensive procurement dataset in the market: historic and current data on what was published, what was awarded, and how suppliers engaged with those opportunities.”
This data advantage means Mercell’s AI models are trained on actual public procurement data, not generic internet text. That allows the AI to understand the unique language, structure, and requirements of tenders, leading to more accurate and useful recommendations.
And while public procurement data is, by definition, publicly available, Mercell handles it with care. All data usage is fully compliant with EU regulations, with strict privacy and security standards applied.
“We never use confidential or private information inappropriately,” Daniel says. “Our strength lies in making public data more useful and actionable than anyone else.”
Lowering the Barrier to Entry
AI is often associated with high-tech capabilities for expert users, but at Mercell, it’s also a tool for democratising access to public contracts.
Experienced procurement professionals already have well-optimised monitoring profiles,” Daniel explains. “Today, it is enough for suppliers to share a brief description of what their company does and what opportunities they are looking for, and the AI Profile Builder will create a monitoring profile with which they can start monitoring business opportunities immediately.”
By automating profile creation and improving match quality, AI lowers the barrier to entry, making it easier for small businesses, one-person companies, and newcomers to find and compete for relevant tenders.
The self-service nature of Mercell’s AI tools also puts more control in the hands of the supplier. They can update and refine their monitoring profiles at any time, with AI suggesting improvements and surfacing matches they might not have considered.
Pushing the Boundaries
The AI capabilities in the Mercell platform today are just the start. Behind the scenes, our teams are already working on new ways to give suppliers an even greater advantage; innovations that promise to change how you discover and prepare for opportunities.
One of these is Early Tender Insights which is a way to spot potential opportunities before they officially appear as tenders. Public institutions often leave a trail of clues in meeting minutes, budget announcements, and other early-stage documents. Imagine if you could see those signals automatically, weeks or even months ahead of everyone else. That’s the kind of head start we’re aiming for.
Another upcoming development is our Data Enrichment Layer. Every week, tenders are published with missing codes, vague descriptions, or incomplete details — gaps that can cause suppliers to overlook them entirely. Our enrichment layer will fill in those blanks automatically, adding precise CPV codes, relevant keywords, and cleaner categorisation. The outcome? Even sharper tender matching and more relevant results without you lifting a finger.
The future of AI in procurement isn’t just about doing more. It’s about seeing further, acting sooner, and removing every last barrier between you and the opportunities that matter most.
Why Mercell’s AI is Different
Mercell’s AI is built to address the full lifecycle of tender discovery and matching, not as an add-on, but as a core part of the platform.
“We don’t just aim to provide one small feature,” Daniel says. “Our approach is to identify the right data sources, build scrapers that can adapt as those sources evolve, extract and standardise the information, enrich it with additional detail, and then match it to the right suppliers. It’s a complete process designed for procurement from the ground up, and it guides both the capabilities we’ve built already and those we’re developing next.”
This approach was chosen deliberately to ensure accuracy, relevance, and transparency at every stage. By controlling the entire process, from where the data comes from to how it’s prepared and delivered, Mercell can guarantee that the AI works with the highest-quality inputs, leading to better outcomes for suppliers.
Combined with the scale of our data coverage, our deep understanding of procurement, and our commitment to responsible data use, this integrated approach makes AI a seamless, invisible partner in the supplier’s workflow, delivering measurable results without adding complexity.
Cutting Through the Noise
For Daniel, the value of AI in procurement can be summed up in one sentence:
“We help suppliers cut through the noise. Whether you’re an experienced bidder or just starting out, our AI makes finding, evaluating, and winning public contracts faster, easier, and more strategic.”
With AI now an essential part of the procurement process, choosing the right platform is no longer about who “has AI”, it’s about who uses it in a way that delivers consistent, relevant, and compliant results.
Ready to see it in action?
Experience how Better Tender Matching, Tender Summarisation, and the AI-powered Profile Builder can save you hours, surface better opportunities, and keep your profile optimised automatically.