Summary
Like many industries, AI is transforming procurement, shifting it from a transactional function to a more strategic, intelligence-driven operation. By automating routine tasks, improving forecasting, and enhancing risk management, AI allows procurement teams to focus on higher-value activities, including optimizing working capital and enhancing supply chain resilience. Adoption of AI is growing, but there are still challenges to be considered around data quality, organizational readiness, and evolving human roles. Successfully incorporating AI depends on building human capabilities, and fostering a culture of trust, transparency, and cross-functional collaboration.

Contents:

How AI is reshaping procurement

Current AI adoption and use cases

Challenges in scaling AI

Impact of AI on human roles

Security, compliance, and trust considerations

Roadmap for scaling AI in procurement

Strategic value of AI for resilience and working capital

AI in Procurement: How AI is Reshaping Risk, Resilience and the Human Role

In 2025, SAP Taulia, in partnership with Opinium, surveyed 600 senior decision-makers in finance and procurement roles across six markets: the UK, US, Germany, France, Australia, and Singapore. Respondents were evenly distributed across regions and industries, representing both mid-sized and large enterprises.

The following represents an initial overview of the findings.

Procurement is undergoing a profound transformation. As SAP Chief Procurement Officer Nikolaus Kirner notes, the industry is moving “from transactional to strategic”, reshaped into an intelligence-led capability driven by the irresistible rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

Kirner envisions procurement teams that are “smaller, smarter, and faster”; driven by automation to eliminate repetitive work, and by augmentation to empower better strategic decisions.

However, this transition will only succeed where leaders communicate the purpose behind change. If procurement embraces AI intelligently – by consolidating data, improving forecasting, and strengthening risk detection – it can become what Kirner calls the “intelligent hub of the organization”.

Our research builds on that vision by analyzing:

• How procurement leaders can scale AI to build long-term resilience
• How AI is already being adopted in procurement
• Where it is delivering measurable value
• What risks and barriers still constrain progress

AI Adoption and Strategic Momentum

Our research showed that across the 600 global leaders surveyed, convictions about AI’s potential as a structural shift are strikingly consistent:

• 87% agree procurement is shifting from manual processes to more strategic, value-adding work.
• 82% believe AI will play a major or moderate role in overcoming procurement challenges.
• 88% say automation will free teams to focus on higher-value activities such as relationship management, risk mitigation, and long-term value.

Generative AI adoption is already mainstream, with 63% of leaders using tools such as Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT. Leaders foresee broad deployment across areas including but not limited to financial systems, cybersecurity, customer-facing functions and supply chain operations.

Where AI Is Already Delivering Value

Interviews and data reveal five clear use cases:

1. Automation of high-volume transactional work, such as invoice matching or spend analysis, unlocking thousands of hours annually, reducing approval cycles and cutting purchasing costs.
2. Improved forecasting accuracy through larger, integrated datasets and supplier performance predictions.
3. Enhanced risk management, with 36% using AI for risk monitoring across supply chains, to help detect geopolitical and environmental risk earlier.
4. Proactive planning, with 87% reporting a shift from reactive to predictive workflows.
5. More time for strategic work, as AI compresses analysis cycles that once took days or weeks, reducing administrative burdens.

Leaders consistently describe AI as a tool that speeds up data interrogation, flags anomalies, and supports category teams with rapid insight. However, they also highlight the enduring need for human judgment, particularly in negotiation and supplier relationships.

Procurement’s Repositioning Through AI

44% of procurement leaders say cash-flow optimization has the greatest impact on outcomes. Looking ahead, they expect AI to shift value toward product reliability, customer experience and broader business resilience. In doing so it can help businesses anticipate disruption and inform better decisions.

The Concerns about AI

While enthusiasm for AI is high, leaders are candid about the barriers they face. Many of these challenges arise not from the technology itself, but from organizational readiness, uncertainty over the use of data, and potential cultural hesitations from staff.

Data Quality/Data Literacy

Interviewees repeatedly identify data as the defining obstacle:

• Lack of standardization
• Fragmented ownership
• Inconsistent system integrations
• Cultural reluctance to share data

Poor-quality or siloed data undermines AI’s effectiveness. However, leaders also note that AI can help build data literacy and transform raw data into insights if there are foundational structures in place, and cross-functional collaboration between procurement and finance to share data.

Skill Gaps/ Cultural Resistance

Our report found widespread concerns about capability and understanding:

• 35% of leaders not using AI say they don’t understand its benefits.
• 33% cite lack of internal AI expertise.
• 33% highlight misalignment between digital transformation strategy and procurement.

On a broader level, 40% worry AI will overemphasize cost savings, 39% fear difficulty demonstrating procurement’s value, and 37% are concerned about job losses. Underlying many of these fears is uncertainty about how roles will change and whether teams will be supported through that transition.

The Effect On The Human Role

Leaders remain cautious about the implications for teams:

• 40% fear AI will push procurement back toward cost-cutting rather than strategic value.
• 39% worry it may reduce perceived value of procurement roles.
• 37% are concerned about potential job losses.
• 81% express concern about the impact of AI on their teams.

However, the report overwhelmingly demonstrates that AI augments human capability, rather than replaces it.

Interviewees stress that curiosity, critical thinking, data literacy, and change management will define the most successful procurement teams of the next decade.

Security, Compliance, and Trust

Data privacy was another central concern, with 36% citing data security as the primary barrier to adoption. Several leaders prefer to use internally developed AI tools with strict controls, ensuring sensitive spend data remains protected.

Scaling AI Successfully: A Roadmap

The report identifies several critical enablers for sustainable AI scaling:

1. Start small and automate high-volume, high-impact areas first—invoice matching, intake-to-pay, spend analysis.
2. Standardize data and strengthen integrations to enable accurate insights.
3. Build psychological safety so teams feel confident experimenting.
4. Invest in human capability: storytelling, strategic thinking, curiosity, and data literacy.
5. Embed AI into workflows, not as standalone tools, to ensure seamless collaboration

Procurement at the Sharp Edge

The report emphasizes procurement’s evolving role at “the sharp edge” of business survival. AI’s greatest strategic contributions lie in:

1. Intelligent liquidity and working capital optimization – 43% of those surveyed seek AI-enabled spend analysis and 39% automating invoice processing.
2. Strengthened supply chain resilience – integrating real-time risk signals to enable earlier interventions and better scenario planning.
3. Decision Intelligence – accelerating analysis-to-action cycles and enabling multi-variable simulations that humans cannot replicate.
4. Human oversight as a strategic advantage – Leaders emphasize keeping “hands on the wheel,” ensuring judgment, context and ethical oversight.

A Strategic Imperative for the Next Era

AI is no longer optional. It is a foundational capability that will determine whether procurement becomes a reactive cost centre or a strategic engine powering resilience, innovation, and liquidity. The organizations that will lead are those that:

• Use AI to eliminate friction
• Strengthen decision-making
• Expand human capability
• Build trust, transparency, and safe experimentation
• Align finance, procurement and technology teams around shared goals

As SAP Taulia’s perspective makes clear, the future belongs to procurement teams that treat AI not as a threat, but as a force with which to collaborate to make a bigger impact.