Could Agentic AI Be The Superhero Of Sales Order Processing?
Uli Erxleben, Founder and CEO, Hypatos.ai. Our vision is to enable AI to run business operations, while humans make decisions.
getty
Every year, businesses lose billions due to inefficiencies in sales order processing—delays, errors and outdated manual workflows. A McKinsey report on order-to-cash optimization highlights how these inefficiencies can significantly impact revenue and operations. But what if AI could eliminate these bottlenecks and transform order processing into a seamless, automated engine for growth?
Sales order processing is more than just an administrative function; it's the backbone of revenue generation. It involves multiple stakeholders on both the buyer and seller sides—from procurement and finance to warehousing and sales teams. Each step demands precision: pricing negotiations, compliance checks, order validation and fulfillment. Any breakdown in this chain can lead to lost sales, strained customer relationships and operational chaos.
Think your sales order process is error-free? Think again. From missing information to compliance nightmares, even the best-run businesses face costly bottlenecks.
Traditionally, AI has been seen as ill-equipped to handle the complexities of sales orders. The common belief is that order processing is too nuanced, too company-specific and too reliant on human expertise. But these assumptions are outdated. As I explained in one of my articles on the human-machine transition, today's AI agents can process orders faster, more accurately and more intelligently than even the most experienced teams.
Even in 2025, businesses grapple with inefficiencies like:
Manual Data Entry Errors: A single typo can cause costly fulfillment delays.
Lack Of Real-Time Visibility: Businesses struggle to track orders across fragmented systems.
Compliance And Pricing Complexities: Changing tax codes, contract terms and promotional pricing create roadblocks.
Slow Approvals And Processing Times: Delays frustrate customers and impact cash flow.
The cost of these inefficiencies? Higher operational expenses, dissatisfied customers and revenue leakage. Companies can no longer afford to rely on outdated processes when technology offers a clear solution.
Unlike traditional automation, which follows rigid, predefined rules, agentic AI adapts, learns and makes intelligent decisions. Think of it as a highly skilled digital assistant that evolves with your business, handling complex order processing with precision and speed.
For example, AI agents can:
• Instantly match purchase orders with product catalogs, ensuring accurate item selection.
• Predict and resolve potential errors, reducing rejected or incorrect orders.
• Streamline workflows by integrating seamlessly with ERP and CRM systems.
• Automate compliance checks, reducing legal and tax-related risks.
One leading cleaning technology company operating in over 150 countries implemented my company's platform leveraging its domain-specific Accounts Payable AI Agent as a core component of their automation center. The result? An 85% straight-through processing (STP) rate, dramatically accelerating their global invoice-to-pay cycle, eliminating errors and significantly reducing manual reconciliations. AI didn't just optimize processes—it unlocked new levels of efficiency and scalability as they now let AI handle data entry and matching tasks while humans do what they do best: build relationships.
There's a common misconception that AI will replace human jobs. In reality, AI isn't about eliminating roles—it's about empowering them. By automating repetitive, time-consuming tasks, AI allows sales and finance teams to focus on higher-value work like strategic planning and customer relationship management.
Imagine a world where sales professionals spend less time inputting orders and more time engaging with clients. Where finance teams aren't buried in spreadsheets but are driving data-backed decisions. This is the promise of AI-driven order processing.
While agentic AI presents a compelling solution to sales order processing inefficiencies, it's important to acknowledge potential challenges and limitations. Like any transformative technology, it comes with hurdles businesses need to navigate before diving in headfirst.
Deploying AI for sales order processing isn't a plug-and-play solution. It requires integration with existing ERP, CRM and financial systems, which can be costly and time-consuming. Companies must also invest in training and change management to ensure a smooth transition.
AI is only as good as the data it's fed. If a business has inconsistent, incomplete or outdated data, AI may struggle to deliver accurate results. Cleaning and standardizing data before implementation is a crucial but often underestimated first step.
While AI excels at automating routine tasks, sales orders can involve highly specific contractual terms, customer preferences or unusual requests that may require human judgment. Businesses need to strike the right balance between automation and human oversight.
Automating sales order processing isn't just about efficiency—it's about positioning your business for future success. The question isn't whether AI can handle sales order processing—it's whether your business can afford to keep relying on outdated manual workflows. The future belongs to those who embrace transformation. Are you ready?
The information provided here is not investment, tax or financial advice. You should consult with a licensed professional for advice concerning your specific situation.
Forbes Finance Council is an invitation-only organization for executives in successful accounting, financial planning and wealth management firms. Do I qualify?
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
21 hours ago
- Forbes
Luxury Skincare Costs Too Much. Brandefy Has A Fix For That: Dupes
The beauty industry's glow is starting to fade, according to McKinsey and The Beauty of Fashion's latest 'State of Beauty' report. 'Beauty's era of effortless growth is giving way to a more complex landscape,' it observes, highlighting that while the global beauty market grew 7% annually from 2022 to 2024, reaching $441 billion, growth is projected to slow to between 3% and 5% per year through 2030. Consumers' increased focus on getting the most value for their money is the number one theme shaping the future of the beauty industry, according to 56% of the 100 senior beauty industry executives surveyed. And 54% see an uncertain consumer appetite or restricted spending as the industry's greatest risk. These two challenges are reflected in the dynamic growth in dupes – beauty products formulated to deliver results comparable to high-end brands but at a fraction of the cost. 'Many customers are not price-sensitive as much as they are value-sensitive — though differentiating on value is increasingly difficult in an era of dupes,' the report explains, offering no easy answers for how established industry players can counter dupes' disruptive force. Brandefy's Meg Pryde, a pioneer helping drive dupe culture, is positioned in the catbird seat as the beauty industry recalibrates. Pryde founded Brandefy in 2018 after working for a multi-billion private label manufacturer in the healthcare industry. 'I was appalled that you had different containers, one priced at $80 and another for $10, and they had similar or exactly the same stuff inside. I knew there was a way to use community and technology to help people decide if it was worth it to pay up or buy the generic,' she shared with me. Brandefy founder and CEO Meg Pryde Courtesy of Brandefy Recognizing that the beauty industry was one of the least transparent about product ingredients and performance just as consumers were doing more research to make informed purchase decisions, Pryde became the industry's disrupter-in-chief with the Brandefy app support its user community to share their dupe favorites. The app allows community members to compare brand-name products against the available dupes, rate them by performance, packaging and ingredients. It then assigns the dupes a 'similarity score.' The app contains listings for over a thousand brands and more than 10,000 product reviews. The app has been downloaded over half-a-million times, Pryde tells me. 'Our primary reason for being is to save people time and money figuring out what's the best product for them.' Pryde initially bootstrapped her Brandefy venture by cashing out her retirement account while earning an M.B.A. at the University of Virginia. After running the app for a few years, she realized that skincare was the biggest source of confusion for the community – especially as a virtual arms race was evolving at the clinical, higher-end of the market. A $1.7 million investment round fueled a research-and-development initiative to create a line of Brandefy top-quality skincare dupes for the most requested products. Chemist Judi Steward, who worked for 20 years in R&D with Estée Lauder, as well as with L'Oréal and Chanel, came on board to help put the science into Brandefy's formulas. And Pryde attracted dermatologist partners to ensure the highest quality, safety and performance. Currently, Brandefy offers 11 skincare products, including cleansers, serums, moisturizers and tinted sunscreen. Brandefy guarantees as good or better results at significant savings. 'We call it a national brand 'better,'' she said, adding that the company selects North American manufacturing partners that have special expertise in the specific type of product. For example, Brandefy's best-selling $49 Clinical Vit C + E + Ferulic Defend Serum is 'inspired by' SkinCeuticals C E Ferulic that retails for $182. And its No-Needles Renew Serum with niacinamide, hyaluronic acid and peptide complex sells for $35 as compared to $69 for DRMTLGY Needle-less Serum that inspired it. 'I'm so proud of our product line. I've gotten so many incredible compliments, but the biggest is our recorder rate. It's fantastic,' she shared. Based upon community feedback, Brandefy is expanding into the fragrance category with three signature scents including Number One, inspired by Maison Francis Kurkdjian's Baccarat Rouge 540, that sells for $49 versus $210; Number 2, inspired by Black Opium, for $29 instead of $130; and Number 3, inspired by Le Labo Another 13, for $59 rather than $235. And all three Brandefy Scent Labs offerings come in larger sizes than their comparables. Business of Fashion editor Daniela Morosini acknowledges that 'the beauty space is being overtaken by dupe brands,' and the McKinsey report reinforces it. Since 2023, consumer spending on skincare at the high-end cut way back and spending at the lower-end rose. The share of 1,000+ U.S. consumers surveyed who spent $76 or more on skincare in the past six months dropped from 50% in 2023 to 43% in 2025, while spending at the $35 and under price range increased the most, up from 26% to 37%. Even spending in the moderate $36 to $75 range dropped, from 24% to 20%. Haircare, color cosmetics and to a lesser extent fragrance have seen a similar shift to lower spending. Haircare spending in the $35 and under price range went from 29% in 2023 to 48% in 2025. Color spending went from 26% to 34% and fragrance from 22% to 29%. Overall, interest in dupes is on the rise, with 28% of global consumers saying they have consciously bought dupes and 53% being open to buying them. McKinsey partner Sara Hudson concludes, 'Amplified by inflation and perceptions of products being overpriced, 'dupes' (products that either directly or indirectly imitate premium items at a lower price) will continue to appeal to consumers. 'Dupes' are likely here to stay.' Pryde and her Brandefy community are all in. 'We save our community millions of dollars every year through our app and products.' But she stresses that saving money isn't the only goal. She doesn't want customers to be duped by the high-priced brands. 'Marketers would regularly talk about adding a whisper of an ingredient, at an irrelevantly low level, just to make a marketing claim, like 'includes snow mushrooms.' We deserve better and Brandefy and our community helps them find better,' she concluded. See also:
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Bloomberg
A Luxury Travel Bubble Is Swelling
When you go on vacation, do you ever treat yourself to an upgraded airline seat? Or book the (admittedly cheapest) room at a five-star hotel? Maybe splurge on a spa day or celebratory Michelin-starred meal? If any of this sounds familiar, you may be what the travel industry calls an 'aspirational' luxury traveler. And much to the industry's potential dismay, you're also inflating an economic bubble that may be about to burst. According to McKinsey, the aspirational set, defined as those with between $100,000 and $1 million in net worth, now accounts for 35% of the global luxury travel market. In 2023, they spent $84 billion on high-end vacations, a figure expected to grow to $107 billion by 2028. That purchasing power has helped turn luxury travel from a glamorous niche into a major profit center, sparking a race among airlines, hotels, cruise lines, tour companies and the rest to cater to and capture this market segment. But what happens when economic uncertainty suddenly brings aspirations back down to earth?
Forbes
2 days ago
- Forbes
How Smart AI Is Taming Document Chaos Across Industries
Visual AI The way your business handles documents is about to change forever. For decades, organizations in healthcare, finance, logistics, and manufacturing have trudged through oceans of paperwork. Think lab reports, onboarding forms, shipping manifests, compliance charts—often in formats that shift without warning. These unstructured documents don't just clutter systems; they bog down operations, drain employee hours, and leave room for costly errors. Now, a new wave of AI technology is doing more than automating this mess. It's beginning to understand it. Visual AI, powered by agentic capabilities like layout-aware parsing and visual grounding, is redefining how enterprises process information. It's not just reading documents—it's making sense of them in ways that humans can trust and scale. Tools like LandingAI's Agentic Document Extraction (ADE), recently launched on the Snowflake Marketplace, are setting a new standard in document intelligence. Instead of struggling with outdated OCR systems and rigid templates, businesses are seeing real results. We're talking faster turnaround times, fewer compliance risks, and more meaningful interactions with customers and patients. According to McKinsey, AI has the potential to unlock $4.4 trillion in productivity gains through corporate use cases—transformations like visual AI are a core piece of that opportunity. Here's what business leaders need to know right now to stay ahead: 1. AI can now extract, interpret, and structure complex visual data across industries Traditional document processing systems rely on fixed formats. If a field shifts or a new variation appears, the system breaks—or worse, misinterprets the data. Visual AI flips this model by recognizing visual and contextual cues, not just characters. That means it can navigate invoices, charts, or medical forms, even when they're messy, scanned, or inconsistent. 'We've seen firsthand the challenges businesses face when trying to extract meaningful data from complex documents,' Dan Malony, CEO at LandingAI, said in a recent press release. 'Agentic Document Extraction solves these challenges by providing a powerful, accurate, and efficient solution that unlocks valuable insights from documents. It's helping customers unlock millions of data points previously buried in forms and PDFs—at scale and with confidence.' This kind of intelligent, layout-aware processing marks a major departure from brittle automation tools of the past. It's not just about digitizing documents; it's about truly understanding them. 2. This new wave of visual AI is already producing measurable ROI It's one thing to promise disruption. It's another to deliver it. Visual AI tools, driven by agentic capabilities that let them make decisions and take initiative, are already moving the needle across critical performance metrics: onboarding times are shrinking, regulatory audits are smoother, and front-line workers are spending less time chasing missing data. One example is JPMorgan's Contract Intelligence (COiN) platform, which uses visual AI to analyze complex legal documents. The system extracts key data points in seconds—interpreting not just text but also images and tables—streamlining a process that once consumed thousands of human hours. The platform has saved the bank an estimated 360,000 hours of manual review each year and significantly reduced compliance risk. It's a clear demonstration of how multimodal, agentic AI frameworks can transform even the most high-stakes workflows. It's clear that empowering employees with AI that augments—not replaces—their capabilities can yield dramatic gains in productivity and job satisfaction. Visual AI fits that mold perfectly, acting as a tireless assistant for one of the most overlooked aspects of enterprise operations: document chaos. 3. Adopting agentic document intelligence now gives you a competitive edge Behind every big decision in a modern enterprise is a document—whether it's a customer intake form, a compliance checklist, or a supplier contract. Yet most companies treat these documents like static clutter. Visual AI challenges that mindset. It treats every document as a living source of insight. PwC's recent executive playbook on agentic AI emphasizes that early adopters of AI set industry benchmarks, gain first-mover advantage, streamline operations, and create barriers to entry through deep integration. In contrast, late adopters face higher opportunity costs, slower innovation cycles, and steeper learning curves. By integrating agentic document tools now, businesses can stay ahead of industry shifts, respond faster to compliance changes, and deliver superior service without scaling headcount. The smart shift starts with smarter documents The future of enterprise efficiency won't be built on filing cabinets or fragile templates—it will be powered by intelligent systems that truly understand the documents they process. Visual AI is more than a tech upgrade; it's a strategic shift that transforms unstructured data into a wellspring of insight and action. For leaders ready to modernize operations, reduce friction, and unlock smarter workflows, the path forward is clear: It starts by giving your documents the intelligence to work for you.
