Is Your Procurement Team Ready for the AI Surge?

AI Is No Longer a Future Consideration—It’s a Present-Day Imperative

In 2025, artificial intelligence has become the strategic engine of procurement, redefining performance, sustainability, and competitiveness. While adoption is accelerating among large enterprises, many SMEs risk being left behind.

The question is no longer if you should act—but how soon.

Transformative Procurement Change

1. From Tactical to Transformational: AI in Action

Across industries, AI is lifting procurement from operational support to strategic leadership.

• Walmart uses AI chatbots to negotiate with thousands of tail-end suppliers, automating low-value interactions and enabling teams to focus on complex, high-impact relationships.

• Roche leverages AI-driven contract management to reduce clinical trial onboarding time, cut costs, and ensure regulatory compliance.

Key Data:

• 94% of procurement leaders use generative AI weekly, up from 50% in 2023.

• Procurement technology budgets are set to increase by 5.6% in 2025.

• The generative AI market in procurement is projected to grow at a 28.9% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2025 and 2029.

Takeaway: If your team isn’t piloting AI, you’re already behind.

Ask Yourself: Where can you free up human capacity by automating routine tasks?

2. Smarter Decisions, Faster: AI Across the Value Chain

AI is transforming procurement decision-making across core functions:

• Risk: Real-time tools detect supplier disruptions before they escalate.

• Sustainability: Intelligent evaluations assess emissions and social compliance.

• Spend: Predictive analytics optimise sourcing and forecast demand changes.

• Contracts: Automated platforms extract key terms and flag renegotiation opportunities.

Takeaway: AI enables faster, smarter, and more compliant decisions.

Team Discussion: Are we leveraging AI to align procurement with our sustainability objectives?

3. Why Most Teams Aren’t There Yet

Despite strong optimism—85% of procurement leaders recognise AI’s potential—61% of procurement teams have yet to integrate AI. The main barriers include:

• Fragmented data

• Legacy systems

• Skills gaps in digital literacy, analytics, and ethics

Procurement professionals must evolve from tactical operators to strategic, technology-enabled leaders.

Takeaway: Transformation is no longer optional—it’s a leadership imperative.

Consider: What is your upskilling plan for the next 12 months?

4. AI for SMEs: Small Teams, Big Wins

SMEs are increasingly using AI to close the gap with larger competitors.

• Automation has helped SMEs achieve up to 90% efficiency in invoice handling and reduce contract approval times by over 30%.

• Open-source and modular AI tools make it easy to start small—automating spend analytics or supplier onboarding with minimal investment.

• Generative AI acts as a “virtual consultant,” analysing spend and supplier performance to deliver insights that once required costly advisors.

Takeaway: AI is your great equaliser—not your adversary.

Ask Yourself: What’s one procurement process we could automate this quarter?

5. Sustainability & Inclusion: AI’s Double-Edged Sword

AI can accelerate sustainability and social inclusion—but only if implemented responsibly.

• Positive impact: Finnish government agencies automated 1.2 million invoices annually with 90% touchless processing, saving €15 million and reducing environmental impact.

• Risks: The energy demands of large-scale AI systems and algorithmic biases can undermine ESG goals.

Procurement leaders must embed ethical AI design from the outset—not as an afterthought.

Takeaway: AI should amplify your values—not compromise them.

Reflect: Are our AI tools reinforcing equity and sustainability, or overlooking them?

6. Your AI & Sustainable Procurement Action Plan

Start Small. Think Big. Move Fast.

This quarter, take these steps:

1. Audit procurement workflows for automation opportunities.

2. Pilot a generative AI tool (e.g., spend analysis, risk monitoring).

3. Review supplier diversity and ESG data—can AI enhance visibility?

4. Launch an upskilling initiative in digital tools, AI literacy, and ethical technology.

5. Define ethical guidelines for AI use in procurement organisation-wide.

7. Questions to Spark Strategic Discussion

• What role should AI play in shaping our procurement culture and ethics?

• Are we investing in AI because it’s trendy or because it’s transformative?

• How do we ensure SMEs are not excluded from AI-driven value chains?

• What risks do we face if we do nothing in the next 12 months?

Final Thought

AI is not just a productivity tool—it is a lever for resilience, responsibility, and reinvention. Whether you are a solo buyer or lead a global team, the next move is yours.

Fanny Ganti - Transformative Procurement Change® - Nice - France - August 2025