Zip Forward 2026 recap: Finding flow at The Glasshouse

Over two perfectly gorgeous days in New York, more than 1,000 leaders in procurement, finance, and more, filled The Glasshouse for Zip Forward 2026.

It was the largest gathering of the Zip community yet, with teams from Shopify, T-Mobile, Verizon, Block, Gusto, and hundreds of other companies in the room to connect on the next era of AI and procurement potential.

Between sessions, attendees met Zip product leaders and partners in the Innovation Hub, booked one-on-one time with our solutions team at the Genius Bar, and grabbed some precious R&R taking a sound bath at the Flow Zone. The vibes were immaculate along the Hudson.

The entire event was connected through the idea of flow. Our luminary speaker Michael Strahan talked about achieving flow state, and how being a team player can help everyone to achieve peak performance. Box’s Linda Chuan told the room to “be like water.” Our CPO panel spent 25 minutes not just on flow, but also what friction is actually worth keeping.

And throughout it all, the event brought us all in to share experience, opportunities, and build relationships to truly Zip together.

Here’s what happened on stage in New York, starting with the opening keynote.

Zip Forward 2026 opening keynote

Rujul and Lu opened day one with a look back at the past year. Zip shipped more than 900 new features into the platform in that time, each of which runs inside a governed AI platform, with the approvals and audit trails that auditors and regulators ask to see.

Lu then shared how Zip's AI agents compare with general-purpose AI. In head-to-head tests on procurement work such as coding invoices, Zip's agents and subagents beat the frontier LLMs on key performance metrics vital to the work of procurement.

Lu tied this result to the context layer; while a frontier model may see an invoice, a Zip agent sees the invoice alongside every element of the purchase requirements, including the PO, receipt, the supplier’s history, the company’s coding rules and more—because it all already runs through Zip.

→ Watch the full keynote on-demand.

New AI products for procurement and finance

The announcements that followed put more of this context to work. Customers from CIBC, Visa, and Unifi Aviation joined us on stage for our largest set of product announcements to date.

• AI Risk Orchestration is a full third-party risk management solution inside the same platform where purchasing decisions happen. It triages incoming requests, pre-fills questionnaires with supplier data already in Zip, and scores each supplier against your own risk framework.
• Accrual Automation generates month-end accruals from the POs, receipts, and contracts already in Zip and prepares journal entries for the ERP. A person approves every entry, and every calculation has a full audit trail.
• The Sourcing Superagent handles the coordination and analysis behind a sourcing event while buyers make the decisions. The PO Superagent recommends the next step on orders that need attention, such as closing a PO or submitting a change order, and requesters act on it with one click.
• Marketplace launched with more than 20 integration templates across ERP, P2P, CLM, GRC, and more. Admins connect them through an AI-guided setup wizard and apply upgrades in one click.
• Our new AI data partners of NPI, SpendHound, Tropic, Beroe, Brightfield, and TEEM, give procurement teams and Superagents supporting external context on every purchase and negotiation throughout the Zip experience.

 → Read the full announcement or watch the watch the full keynote.

Day one sessions on the Peak Stage

Grace Larrea, Zip's Head of Community, and Rudy Batts, Zip's Head of Procurement, hosted the Peak Stage throughout the first day at The Glasshouse. 

What makes this duo so dynamic is that both came as procurement professionals at companies that adopted Zip, and both were so compelled by the power of the product that they now both work at Zip. They joked that Zip Forward wasn’t simply a networking event, but actually Zip onboarding.

How CIBC runs AI in a regulated bank

Edina Cavalli, VP of Procurement at CIBC, one of Canada's largest financial institutions, opened the sessions with characteristic flair. 

Her experience at CIBC is a challenging one: in global financial services, every approval and every vendor relationship runs through strict regulatory requirements. Edina shared how CIBC uses those requirements as a design constraint, and why that makes its AI program stronger.

Shopify CFO Jeff Hoffmeister on AI-first finance

Jeff Hoffmeister spent 23 years at Morgan Stanley and worked on Shopify's pre-IPO audit before becoming its CFO. 

When Shopify's CEO made AI use a baseline expectation for every employee, Jeff's team had to turn that mandate into decisions on budget and headcount, including which new roles get approved. In his fireside chat with Zip CEO Rujul Zaparde, Jeff spoke about how the CFO role changes when the whole company runs AI-first.

His advice for leaders was to act now on where they expect to be.

"Think about where you think your organization is going to be two or three years from now in terms of AI and get there first. Lead the team, live the future, and make it happen today." _{- Jeff Hoffmeister, CFO, Shopify}

→ Watch the full fireside chat with Jeff Hoffmeister on building AI-first finance at Shopify.

CPOs from Invesco, Databricks, and Humana on good friction

Before the CPO panel, Rudy asked the whole room to rub their hands together. The heat you feel is friction, and the panel argued some of it is useful. 

Zip co-founder Felix Meng moderated a conversation with Al Williams, CPO at Invesco; Emma Chontos, CPO and VP of Global Procurement at Databricks; and Bryan Miller, CPO at Humana. 

They talked through which friction protects the business, such as governance and the reviews that keep supplier relationships healthy, and how to use technology to remove the rest.

→ Watch the full session on how Invesco, Databricks, and Humana use ‘Friction as Fuel.’

IDC on the AI-first enterprise tech stack

After lunch, Grace and Rudy came back on stage to remind the audience about how fast things have been moving in our industry. Grace shared that procurement orchestration didn’t even exist as a category just three years ago, and now it’s difficult to imagine procurement without it.

To dig deeper into how the market has shifted, Patrick Reymann, Research Director for Procurement Applications and Agents at IDC, walked through how the market got here and what changes with AI. 

He argued that the organizations that move fast on AI will build the operating model that decides competitive advantage for the next decade. He laid out three steps to get there: 

• Understand your current state, including your tech stack and readiness for agents
• Take the enterprise view of the stakes and scope
• Learn what it takes to reach enterprise orchestration.

→ Watch the full session from Patrick Reymann of IDC on why 'Governance is the Unlock'

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Michael Strahan on finding flow state

Dallas Stonhaus, Zip's Chief Sales Officer, was genuinely thrilled to introduce this year’s luminary speaker, the one and only Michael Strahan.

Michael Strahan is a Super Bowl champion, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, a two-time Emmy winner, and became a household name as a co-host of Good Morning America.

Strahan walked the room through his career, from the New York Giants' defensive line to the GMA desk. He and Dallas spent the conversation on flow state: how you find it as an individual, how you build it into a team, and how the right technology gets out of the way so the work can happen. His lessons came from leading on a football field, and everyone in the room recognized them from their own jobs right away.

"Find where you fit, make yourself indispensable, and get out of your own way." _{- Michael Strahan}

The entire Glasshouse felt inspired and ready to tackle any challenge that awaits.

The first-ever Zippy Awards

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Every year at Zip Forward, we recognize the customers and community members doing standout work. This year, the awards finally got a name. Grace and Rudy also floated the first-ever ZEGOT for anyone who wins an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, a Tony, and a Zippy. 

Lady Gaga, your career in procurement awaits.

Day two sessions at The Glasshouse

Day two was packed with even more sessions, and the topic attendees came back to most was how to pay for, and prove ROI with their AI investments.

How to budget for AI across the P&L

CJ Gustafson took on a problem every CFO in the room has run into, which is how AI spend now shows up across the P&L instead of in a single line item, so it's hard to budget. 

He led a rousing session on how to correctly leverage AI technology in finance, including some relatively recursive though effective strategies like using AI to predict and manage its own AI usage. That’s just where we are, folks.

Controllers from Duolingo, Onebrief, and Unifi Aviation on AI

Nancy Golembiewski of Duolingo, Nadav Yuhjtman of Onebrief, and Mark Hlavek, VP Controller at Unifi Aviation, talked about how their finance teams build trust in AI output, where they put the capacity AI frees up, and where finance goes next. Mark's team is growing.

"A lot of people say with AI you're going to slow down hiring, but we're going to double our team next year. This is a testament to just how much more you can do." _{- Mark Hlavek, VP Controller, Unifi Aviation}

When asked where they’d like to see AI technology improve the finance function even more, all three guests said accruals—a perfect way to welcome Zip’s new accrual automation feature.

State of AI in Spend 2026: Builders vs. Bystanders

Nick Heinzmann, Zip's Head of Research, packed the Pulse Theater with a walkthrough of Zip's State of AI in Spend 2026 report, a survey of 1,050 procurement, finance, IT, and operations leaders. 

The report found that 62% of leaders use AI multiple times a day, while the 17% who’ve leaned furthest into transformation report clear, measurable ROI from AI investments in procurement technology. 

Nick walked through what separates Builders, who report ROI, from Bystanders. Among Builders, 49% expect their teams to grow, which puts Mark's hiring plans in good company.

→ Download the full State of AI report.

How to build a career in procurement

Emily Zhang of Pinterest, Gaspar Montesa Jr. of Lennar, and Neeraj Mathur of Zillow spoke about what shapes a procurement career: having the right people in the right place, staying adaptable, and taking on the next challenge when it comes.

Customer stories from Block, Gusto, and Box

Block's global accounts payable manager and Zip solutions consultant Tiffany Huang presented Block's month-end reporting. 

Zip shows Block the aging of every invoice in process, including invoices submitted but not yet in the ERP, with supplier details, coding suggestions, and historical trends. Accounting uses that view to evaluate liabilities and accruals with less manual research during close, and the team is looking ahead to Accrual Automation to take on more of the work.

Siddharth Ramesh of Gusto presented the Superagents work Gusto has built with Zip.

Linda Chuan, Chief Value Officer and Chief of Staff to the CFO at Box, told the room to "be like water." 

She described procurement as a current, and the team's job as clearing the manual steps that dam it up so the work keeps moving.

Build vs. buy for enterprise AI

David Rosselli of PwC joined Michael Denari, Zip's GM of AI, to talk through where companies should build their own AI capability and where they should use the AI already built into their enterprise platforms.

See you at Zip Forward 2027

Thank you to Brex for hosting an incredible jazz-funk inflected happy hour, to every speaker who shared what's working inside their company, and to everyone who came to The Glasshouse for the biggest year yet.

We're already planning Zip Forward 2027, and we hope to see you there!

→ Catch recaps from Zip Forward on demand.