Fairmarkit today announced the full agenda for SOAR26, its annual conference for procurement leaders scaling sourcing capacity with AI agents. SOAR26 takes place September 9-10. According to research by Ardent Partners, nearly six in ten procurement teams have AI in flight, but only 1% have crossed from pilot to core processes this year. SOAR26 brings together the leaders turning those pilots into adoption and measurable value.

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Across two days, SOAR26 uplevels both the technology and the tradecraft: agents that scale sourcing execution, and human negotiation skills that scale influence. Highlights include:

Day 1 at the Institute of Contemporary Art:

  • Chris Voss takes the SOAR stage – The former FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator and author of Never Split the Difference brings a career spent navigating high-stakes negotiations to a procurement audience confronting a new question: What skills become more valuable when AI handles the routine load?

  • “Assist or Act: Industry Experts Live Debate on AI Agents, What’s Hype, and Where The Human Goes” – Joël Collin-Demers, Founder of Pure Procurement challenges fellow industry experts in a session that moves beyond consensus. While procurement has embraced AI, the real friction lies in defining the boundary between assistance and autonomous action.

  • “Inside the Transformation” – Hear from procurement leaders of Sonoco, SDI, Diageo, and more: Procurement leaders step beyond the polished case study to share how transformation is playing out inside their organizations, from adoption and change management to proving value.

Day 2 at Boston University:

This day will be focused on hands-on workshops, led by global enterprise leaders, Fairmarkit, and technology partners Amazon Business and ORO. Workshops include:

  • “What I’d Tell My 2023 Self: CPOs on Their AI Journey” – CPO stories of AI implementation wins, surprises, and lessons with first-hand experience.

  • “The 90 Day Adoption Sprint” – What happens after autonomous sourcing go-live? Customers break down the first 90 days and how teams turn a new technology into actual adoption and measurable value.

  • “The Pilot Graveyard: Why Your Proof of Concept Died” – A candid look at why promising pilots never reach production — and what separates the ones that scale.

  • “Winning the Business Case” – How procurement leaders make the numbers work, win over finance and turn an idea into an investment executives will back.

  • Live Negotiation Workshop – That renewal call? Negotiation. The intake request from engineering? Negotiation. The budget ask for the CFO? That too. Jonathan B. Smith, co-author of Fight Less, Win More and a Black Swan Group trainer, teaches the skills underneath: the 5 Levels of Listening that surface what a counterpart won’t say directly, and the Core Four for staying steady under pressure.

“The teams at SOAR26 already won the AI argument,” said Kevin Frechette, CEO and co-founder of Fairmarkit. “Their real question now is how fast they can run and the size of the impact they can drive in the next 12-24 months. AI projects are not one size fits all, it’s not flipping a light switch; it’s learning and iterating as the tech ecosystem continues to evolve. Nobody gets better at that alone, which is the whole point of SOAR. Share what’s real, what’s coming, while also helping to shape the future of procurement.”

Day 1 closes with a VIP Red Sox game in the Fenway Park BBQ Suite; Day 2 wraps at Night Shift Brewing. Event sponsors include: Amazon Business, Zip, ORO, and SpendHQ.

“Most procurement conferences are still selling the idea that AI is coming,” said Collin-Demers. “SOAR26 is for teams past that conversation. They’ve already deployed it, and now they’re dealing with the harder question: how do you ensure consistent results from AI at scale while respecting compliance and governance requirements? That’s worth two days in a room together.”

SOAR26 is complimentary, but space is limited. Attendance is pre-approved and geared toward CPOs, VPs, directors, category leaders, and sourcing and transformation professionals. Registration is open now at soarfairmarkit.com.

About Fairmarkit

Fairmarkit helps enterprises source smarter and spend better. Its autonomous sourcing platform puts AI agents to work from demand to award, for every category of spend. The result: faster procurement and deeper savings across the entire business. With a 2.7M+ supplier marketplace and native integrations into leading ERP and P2P systems, Fairmarkit meets enterprises where they are. Companies like BP, Boeing, and Snowflake have cut sourcing cycle times up to 86% and eliminated tens of thousands of manual hours every year.

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