Real-time procurement intelligence for AI agents
Boris Toledano
COO & Co-founder
Lio's multi-agent procurement platform runs real-time external intelligence across every agent – from supplier onboarding to invoice fraud detection – through a single Linkup integration.
At a glance
Company
Lio has recently raised a $30 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) to build the world’s first AI-powered procurement workforce – specialized agents that handle everything from sourcing and negotiations to invoice validation and spend optimization across enterprises.
The Problem
Internal and legacy systems could not provide Lio’s agents with real-time, external intelligence to enrich supplier data, verify legitimacy, and detect pricing discrepancies
Implementation
Integrated Linkup's search API as the live intelligence layer powering all of Lio's agents – such as their Invoice, Supplier Onboarding, Negotiating, and Procurement Intelligence Agents
Key Results
- Faster invoice processing with real-time supplier data enrichment, autonomous 3-way matching, and fraud detection
- Real-time market pricing insights and cost-saving opportunities
- Improved supplier evaluation and risk monitoring
- From PR to PO in seconds, not weeks
Introduction
Lio deploys a workforce of AI agents that execute procurement workflows autonomously – from supplier onboarding and invoice matching through to negotiation and contract management.
But these agents need more than what exists inside ERPs and internal systems. When an invoice arrives or a supplier is onboarded, Lio's agents need to verify and enrich that data against live public sources. Linkup is the web search API that makes that possible.
The challenge
Procurement decisions are time-sensitive and context-dependent. Internal procurement data only records what was agreed upon. It lacks the context of factors such as whether a supplier still exists, whether invoice details are accurate, or whether the price you are paying reflects current market reality. The core gaps were:
- Invoice data quality: Supplier details on invoices are frequently inconsistent or incomplete, undermining automated matching accuracy
- Pricing validation: Gaining visibility into what suppliers currently charge publicly requires manual research time and can be complex to find
- External grounding: Agents had no way to verify or enrich supplier data beyond internal records
Why Lio chose Linkup
Before Linkup, surfacing accurate, current supplier and product intelligence required continuous monitoring across registries, websites, and trade directories – incompatible with the speed at which Lio's agents operate. Linkup stood out from other search providers in four ways:
- High source diversity: On a blind, LLM-as-a-judge benchmark against leading search providers, Linkup delivered 2-3x greater source diversity – returning results across supplier websites, trade publications, product catalogues, and reportings rather than relying on a narrow source
- Global coverage: Results drawn from a broad, international range of sources, ensuring agents capture pricing shifts, supplier news, and market developments regardless of where they originate
- Use case versatility: Standard and Deep modes cover the full range of agent use cases, from real-time invoice checks to multi-step procurement research
- Enterprise readiness: Linkup is the only European search index and offers zero data retention – aligning with the high data residency standards of Lio’s enterprise clients
Implementation
Linkup acts as the real-time web intelligence layer across Lio’s agent stack, powering three core workflows:
Supplier data enrichment: Lio's Search Agent and Supplier Onboarding Agent combine internal records with external data from Linkup to identify, validate, and enrich supplier profiles. Linkup pulls data on company legitimacy, registration status, financial signals, and public reputation from global business sources and returns it as structured context for enrichment.
Invoice validation and fraud detection: Lio’s Invoice Agent performs 24/7 autonomous 3-way matching for all incoming invoices and ensures they align with the PO and Goods Received. Linkup enables real-time validation of supplier data and flags discrepancies or potential fraud.
Pricing benchmarking and opportunity detection: Lio's Negotiation Agent, Contract Negotiation Agent, and Procurement Intelligence Agent use Linkup to benchmark market pricing, monitor contracts, and identify cost-saving opportunities. For deeper market analysis – macro pricing trends, supplier competitive landscape, contract benchmarking – deep research, runs multiple iterations of agentic search to return comprehensive results.
Results
All of Lio's agents now run on a single Linkup integration, replacing fragmented research workflows with a consistent, real-time intelligence layer. They were able to achieve:
- Faster, more reliable invoice processing through real-time supplier data enrichment and autonomous matching, reducing mismatches and manual interventions
- Real-time pricing benchmarking and opportunity detection, with agents continuously analyzing market data, contracts, and supplier landscapes to surface cost-saving insights
- Stronger supplier evaluation using external data to verify legitimacy, assess reputation, and surface risk signals
- End-to-end acceleration of procurement workflows, with sourcing, validation, and approvals moving from PR to PO in seconds instead of weeks
Conclusion
Lio required procurement intelligence that goes beyond what internal systems hold such as live supplier verification and real-time market pricing. With Linkup, a single integration powered all their agents – with the source diversity, data handling standards, and depth modes to match each use case.
As enterprises scale autonomous workflows, access to real-time, verifiable external data becomes essential.
Ready to give your agents and AI systems the context they need? Get started for free or learn more from our team here.