Small vs. Large: Navigating the Challenges and Benefits of AI in Procurement

Across industries, procurement teams are experimenting with AI tools that promise to transform decision-making, automate manual work and strengthen resilience in increasingly volatile supply environments.

Yet while enthusiasm for AI is widespread, the paths organizations take depend heavily on their size. The perspectives of small- and mid-sized businesses (those with 500–3,999 employees) differ significantly from those of larger enterprises. 

A survey of 600 senior decision-makers conducted by Opinium on behalf of Taulia in August 2025 highlighted key differences, shaped by their realities and their ambitions.  

Firms broadly agree that AI is key to strategic capability for future planning. Nonetheless, the readiness to deploy it, the expectations of its impact and the perceived risks vary with the scale of each organization. 

Procurement’s impact: the ‘now’ or the ‘future’?

Thoughts on the impact of procurement roles reveal disparate viewpoints on how procurement shapes strategy. 45% of SMEs cite driving day-to-day operational efficiency, while another 30% focus primarily on cost reduction – just 15% mention strategy. Conversely, more than half of large enterprises see procurement as a strategic partner contributing to long-term planning, with another 25% highlighting risk management oversight as their core influence.

This difference affects confidence levels as well. 55% of enterprises with over 4,000 employees report feeling highly confident in navigating today’s procurement challenges, compared with just 35% of SMEs. Having established digital processes, data teams and stronger structural resilience are key reasons.

SMEs feel moderately confident overall, but one in five say that skills gaps and limited resources mean they lack the capacity or expertise to confidently respond to fast-changing market conditions. 

Similar challenges but different reasons

Although 62% of large enterprises say procurement challenges have “significantly increased,” compared with 38% of SMEs, the question is scalability. Large enterprises feel disruption more acutely due to complex global supply chains, while SMEs experience steadier – but ever-present and rising – pressure. 

For large organizations, these complex supply networks and higher exposure to geopolitical volatility accelerate the need for predictive tools, which perhaps accounts for their motivations for adopting technology.

Whereas SMEs cite time and cost as key factors for adopting new technology, large enterprises highlight managing complexity and risk. Most SMEs (52%) name reducing manual workload as the main driver; an emphasis on productivity.

Meanwhile, large enterprises emphasise resilience, with over half of respondents prioritising early risk detection, supply chain stability, and standardising global processes.

The obstacles to procurement’s tech adoption are equally telling. Both face barriers, but while SMEs are blocked by resource constraints (48%) that restrict access to advanced tools, large enterprises face structural and system complexity. Where SMEs lack depth – less bandwidth for transformation programmes – large enterprises lack agility, having to deal with organizational silos (58%) and creaking legacy systems (45%).

AI adoption and benefits

AI adoption magnifies this divide, with larger enterprises deploying more sophisticated and integrated AI technologies.  Twice as many (72%) large enterprises as SMEs (35%) say that they already use AI tools in procurement; they also deploy more advanced technology, such as predictive analytics – almost three times as many as SMEs – as well as contract intelligence and automated risk monitoring. SMEs, meanwhile, tend to start with small-scale automation, generative AI for drafting and basic analytics. 

The gap widens further when exploring the benefits of AI. For SMEs, efficiency and time savings drive AI adoption, which is perhaps understandable if a firm operates on a leaner scale. The main references are admin reduction (48%) and clearer spend visibility (32%). Larger firms, however, emphasise intelligence and foresight, such as improved risk forecasting (65%) and better cross-enterprise visibility (58%).

SMEs’ concerns lie in a lack of internal AI expertise and cost constraints. Larger organizations, that may not have to consider such relatively trifling hurdles, are more bothered about how AI would integrate with complex systems, with the risk of poor data quality leading to systemic failures.

Likewise, the impact on how AI enhances decision-making and risk management reflects adoption maturity, the trend showing that the larger the organisation, the sharper the resilience value from AI. The survey finds a vast difference in how respondents report how AI leads to a “significant improvement” (58% for larger firms v 18% for SMEs) and “strengthens resilience” (65% v 30%).

Looking ahead: one shared direction

Despite their different priorities, SMEs and large enterprises share the same destination. Both are driving towards a procurement function where human judgment and AI-powered intelligence operate side-by-side, to boost both the day-to-day and strategic planning roles of procurement professionals.

Each has its own focus. SMEs expect procurement roles to be augmented by AI, with a modest role evolution as teams upskill to become proficient in harnessing value from digital tools. Large enterprises anticipate widespread transformation and system-wide redesign, with 55% expecting major role redefinition and three in ten predicting the creation of new AI-centric roles.

In conclusion, the use of AI in procurement has shifted from what may have once looked like a passing trend into becoming an active element of strategic planning — driving value, forecasting risk, and shaping organizational resilience.