Discover highlights from our webinar, where our experts explored the new role for Procurement professionals in an AI-driven future and shared key advice.
In recent years, there’s been a lot of hype around the benefits AI will bring to the Procurement function. It’s also something we’ve covered in our own webinar series.
But this time, we wanted to explore a crucial part of the discussion that’s often overlooked: the people.
People will play an essential role in ensuring AI’s success and maximising its potential, but many leaders are failing to prepare their teams with the right skills. In fact, a recent Gartner study revealed that only 14% of procurement leaders are confident in their talent’s ability to meet the function’s future needs.
To unpack this challenge, we invited a panel of Procurement experts to share their perspectives on how we can bring people along in the AI revolution – and how leaders can prepare them for success.
You can watch the full conversation on demand, but in the meantime, here are the key highlights.
Panel Attendees:
- Omer Abdullah – Co-Founder, The Smart Cube
- Graham Crawshaw – FCIPS, Procurement Content Director, CASME
- Ruji Mahmud – Head of Procurement Strategy, Transformation, and Operations, GE Healthcare
- Ryan Teeples – Director of Global Sourcing Category Management, Keysight Technologies
Expectations of Procurement in an AI-driven future
While AI is certainly going to bring a lot of value to Procurement, it’s likely the rest of the business will start expecting new levels of performance from the function as a result. Our panel opened the session by explaining why that might not be a bad thing.
“As Procurement professionals, we’ve wanted to do more strategic work for years and demonstrate to the wider organisation that we’re not just a transactional function,” explained Ruji. “We want to drive innovation, and that’s what the post-AI world will enable. It will take away a lot of those transactional activities and help us get closer to the business.”
Ryan, while sharing Ruji’s optimistic view of the AI future, was also cautious about the pressure the technology will add.
“I think we’re going to be asked to be faster and more efficient,” said Ryan, “Turnaround times will need to be quicker, and people will be expected to have the right data at their fingertips – but AI will definitely help with that.”
“That’s been happening for a while, but I think it’s only going to accelerate,” added Omer. “We’ll have to do a lot more with less.”
The combination of human and AI skills
One of the audience polls during the session asked where AI will be most valuable; 85% said task automation, 78% said generating insights to help decision making, and 40% said supporting compliance.
These results were no surprise to the panel, who shared their perspectives on why procurement should let the technology take on some of those tasks.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to let go of those transactional, repetitive activities – it will allow us to move much faster,” suggested Ruji. “We need to really look at the Procurement process end to end to see where AI can support. Whether it’s sourcing, contracting, or spend management, we’ve had the technology there for a long time, and it’s only getting smarter.”
“When you talk about AI, there’s always a misconception that a robot is going to take your role, but I don’t really see that happening,” added Ryan. “However, I do think that if we don’t start embracing AI tools, somebody else will, and they’ll become more efficient. AI gives us the information we need to become better consultants and business partners.”
Crucially, Graham saw that these results also reveal some of the areas where human skills will remain essential: “What won’t change is the relationships. The tools simply give us more time to focus on building relationships, and that’s what we’re all about in Procurement.”
“I think the human touch will always be needed in the negotiation process,” added Ryan. “The software can tell you the benefits and drawbacks of a deal, but at the end of the day, you’ll still need the human touch to make a decision.”
Key barriers holding Procurement teams back from AI success
While the potential relationship between humans and AI is clear in Procurement, the conversation revealed that many leaders struggle to get started.
Another audience poll highlighted three key barriers when it comes to implementing AI tools, which included:
- Inadequate understanding of AI’s potential impact on Procurement
- Confusion around the choice of AI technologies
- Limited budget to invest in AI tools
Ruji, Ryan, and Omer all empathised with these challenges and spoke to the overwhelming choice in the market.
“It’s interesting to see there’s an inadequate understanding of AI’s potential impact – I feel a lot of this could be created by the confusion in the marketplace,” said Omer. “There are so many tools on the market and so much hype around them that it can often be hard to see their true value.”
“Many vendors will talk about the wonderful things their AI can do, but can it really compare a contract to our internal terms and conditions right now? Not quite yet, but it’s definitely getting there,” added Ryan.
Ruji also shared her advice for tackling this barrier, recommending that leaders refocus on the key challenges they face.
“It’s best to start with your problem statement and shut out everything else,” she said. “Think about what you’re trying to solve, what your current technology stack looks like, and how an AI tool might fit in with your processes.”
Logical thinking, prompt writing, and willingness to change will be essential
Closing the session, the panel offered their final thoughts on the evolving roles of Procurement professionals and shared some key advice for leaders navigating the AI-driven future.
“We need professionals who can think logically and interpret what’s coming out of AI,” said Ryan. “We also need people who are willing to change, get out of their comfort zone, and do things a bit differently – it’s all about flexibility.”
Ruji expanded on this point, emphasising the value of Procurement leaders’ knowledge: “As Procurement leaders, we can really master the end-to-end process and bring this knowledge to the table. Then, we can select our tools and set them up to deliver the right output.”
Graham also suggested that writing prompts for large language models will be an essential skill in Procurement teams. “These are easy-to-use tools, but the skill of writing prompts needs practice,” he added. “You need to be very clear about what you want included and what you don’t. It’s something we’re all going to need to develop.”
Watch the full conversation on demand
These are just a handful of the highlights from our discussion. In the full conversation, the panel gave personal anecdotes about how they’re preparing their teams for the future of AI and offered additional advice on how to implement the right tools.
Graham also shared some valuable perspectives from the CASME community around how the wider market is setting their teams up for success.
Watch the session on demand to learn how you can prepare your Procurement function and make the most of AI.