What if procurement’s biggest opportunity in the age of AI is not making procurement faster What if it is helping organisations become ready for the change AI will bring?
In my last post, I suggested that AI may not be the biggest challenge facing organisations. The harder question may be whether organisations, and the people inside them, are ready to use it well. That question has made me think more about procurement’s role in what comes next.
Procurement is often described as one of the professions most likely to be reshaped by AI. I understand why. Much of what we do is process-driven, information-rich and based on outputs that are relatively predictable. AI is already strong in many of those areas.
But I’m not sure procurement’s future is only about making existing processes faster or more efficient. I think it may be much bigger than that.
One of procurement’s strengths is that it rarely
works in isolation. It sits close to many of the decisions that really matter, bringing together business stakeholders, finance, legal, cyber security, technology teams, data specialists, suppliers, implementation partners and senior leaders. Procurement sees across the organisation, not just through one functional lens. In an AI-enabled world, that perspective could become incredibly valuable.
Because AI will not succeed simply because an organisation buys a platform. It will require changes to operating models, governance, commercial arrangements, supplier ecosystems and risk decisions that barely existed a few years ago. That kind of change is not delivered by technology alone. It depends on people with different priorities, incentives, concerns and appetites for change finding a shared way forward.
Finance may focus on investment and return. Technology may prioritise architecture, security and integration. Operations may worry about disruption. Legal may concentrate on liability, accountability and data use. Employees may wonder what the change means for their roles and whether their concerns are being heard. These are not just functional differences. They are human ones. Behind every organisational view is a mix of experience, pressure, responsibility, ambition and sometimes fear.
Bringing those views together takes more than process knowledge or commercial analysis. It requires empathy, judgement and the discipline to listen properly before trying to solve the problem. Perhaps procurement’s role is to orchestrate that conversation.
Not because it has every answer, but because it knows how to ask better questions, understand different perspectives and build enough trust for difficult decisions to be made collectively. Good procurement professionals have never simply evaluated suppliers or negotiated contracts. They read the room. They recognise when a stated objection is not the real concern. They know when to challenge, when to listen, when to compromise and when to stand firm.
As AI takes on more analytical and repeatable work, those human capabilities may become more valuable, not less. For years, procurement has been seen as a commercial function. Increasingly, I think it is becoming a transformation function. Not because it owns technology, but because it understands how technology, suppliers, governance, commercial strategy and human behaviour intersect.
Maybe procurement will not become smaller. Maybe it will become far more significant. But if procurement is to play that wider role, relationships will matter as much as technical and commercial expertise. Which brings me back to a familiar procurement belief I still hold, although for different reasons than I did twenty years ago:
People buy from people.
Maybe the bigger question is whether procurement is ready to become the function that helps organisations bring those people together. I’d be interested to hear how others see this. Is procurement’s biggest AI opportunity efficiency, or orchestration?
Mark Jones
Principal Consultant – Sourcing, Procurement, Supply Chain Management, Peru Consulting
