Procurement in the AI Era: It’s Time for CPOs to Lead the Change

Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) today are under pressure to move faster, cut deeper, and think more strategically about the function. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers a powerful way forward for this transformation, but many organizations remain stuck, and adoption continues to stall. Not because of the tech-readiness, but because legacy systems, entrenched incentives, and incumbent supplier interests seem to resist change.

Why Procurement Struggles to Embrace AI

Business often claims to want innovation, but in practice it clings to the familiar. Some of the loudest voices advocating for transformation are also the ones working hardest to delay it. Across the discipline, the pattern is familiar: bold claims about technology followed by endless cycles of assessments, pilots, and vendor roadmaps that never seem to land. This is rarely accidental; it is often by design.

Too many traditional suppliers have a vested interest in slowing down true transformation. They sell process checks instead of real change, emphasize risk over value, and protect legacy contracts by keeping clients reliant on outdated processes that should have been retired a decade ago. The real risk today is not AI. The real risk is staying stuck in the past.

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