Our Key Takeaways from the 2025 ASAP EU Summit: AI, Smarter Metrics and the Future of Partnership Management
Our Key Takeaways from the ASAP EU Summit 2025: AI, Smarter Metrics and the Future of Partnership Management
We’re back from the ASAP EU Summit 2025 and the conversations, insights, and energy we experienced there were inspiring. The summit brought together alliance leaders from around the world, and allianceboard was proud to sponsor alongside The Rhythm of Business, Merck, and Vantage Partners.
This year, we had the opportunity to lead two interactive sessions; one focused on how AI is reshaping alliance management and another on how to design better performance metrics that drive business value. On top of that, we met with several clients and partners, and the feedback we heard couldn’t have been more encouraging.
Here’s a look at some of the highlights and key takeaways from our time in Amsterdam.
Practical uses of AI in Alliance Management
Our first session, “Practical Insights on Using AI for Strategic Alliance Management” tackled artificial intelligence with areal-world, alliance-focused lens.
There’s no question that AI has captured everyone’s imagination. But as we discussed in the session, the real opportunity for alliance professionals isn’t about replacing roles or automating everything overnight. It’s about using AI to make our work smarter, more impactful, and more strategic.
We shared findings from our 2025 AI in Alliance Management Survey, which showed that a good portion of alliance managers are already using AI in different ways from summarizing complex documents and transforming unstructured data into usable insights, to supporting negotiation prep. One of the key messages that resonated with the audience was this: don’t think about AI in terms of “jobs”, think in terms of “tasks” that can be accomplished to relieve alliance managers.
The most effective alliance teams are deploying AI to take care of the routine, time-consuming work that eats up bandwidth, so alliance managers can focus on what they do best: building relationships, driving collaboration, and delivering strategic value.
We also talked about the growing role of domain-specific AI — tools purpose-built for alliance management rather than generic ones. This type of solution like our platform, allianceboard leverages extensive access-controlled data to deliver proactive insights, automate workflows, and,most importantly, keep sensitive alliance data secure while enabling alliancemanagers to focus on higher order activities.
Measuring What Matters: A Fresh Approach to Alliance Performance
Our second session, a workshop on “Performance Metrics and Evaluation” shifted gears from technology to measurement and we learneda lot from the rich exchanges.
If you’ve ever struggled with defining the “right” KPIs for your alliances, you’re not alone. Many alliance teams find it challenging totell a clear, compelling story about impact. That’s where a design thinking approach can make all the difference.
We guided participants through a process that starts with a simple question: Who are your key stakeholders, and what do they care about? By focusing on the people who use alliance data, their priorities, their decision-making needs, the questions they need answered, you can build a measurement framework that’s not just informative, but truly useful for your stakeholders.
This people-centered mindset helps alliance leaders cut through the noise and focus on metrics that matter. It also makes reporting more meaningful, because when your KPIs align with stakeholder priorities, your data tells a story that drives decisions and deepens trust.
Conversations That Inspire: What We Heard from Clients and Peers
While the sessions were a big highlight, some of our favorite moments happened in the hallways, over coffee, and during networking breaks. We had several conversations with clients, partners, and industry peers, and a few clear themes stood out.
First, the appetite for AI is real. Many organizations are eager to explore how automation and intelligent insights can transform their alliance programs, and they’re excited about allianceboard’s AI for alliance management solution.
Second, metrics are evolving. Companies are looking beyond traditional performance indicators and focusing on how alliances contribute to broader strategic outcomes: from innovation and revenue growth to ecosystem influence.
And finally, there’s a growing recognition that data is the foundation of it all. Whether you’re building AI-driven workflows or designing new performance dashboards, high-quality, well-structured alliance data is the key to unlocking value.
Looking Ahead: Smarter Alliances Start Here
Our time at the ASAP EU Summit reinforced something we believe deeply at allianceboard: the future of alliance management is smarter, more data-driven, and more strategic than ever before.
AI helps us move faster and focus on higher-impact work. Better metrics help us communicate value and guide better decisions. And together, these help alliance managers transform how alliances deliver results for their organizations.
We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who joined our sessions, shared their insights, and offered feedback throughout the event. And we’re even more excited about continuing the conversation and supporting our clients with our digital alliance management platform to empower them to drive alliance success.
If you’re curious about how AI can supercharge your alliance management capabilities or if you’re ready to rethink how you measure success, we’d love to continue the conversation.
Get in touch to learn about allianceboard, the purpose-build solution to run all your partnering activities from Scouting and Business Development to Alliance Management on one intuitive platform, powered by AI.
Here’s to building smarter alliances together.