Procurement pros are adopting AI tools widely, but specialized agents work better than general AI

An annual survey of procurement professionals finds that 33% of procurement professionals spend more time reviewing and checking the outputs of artificial intelligence (AI) than the tech saves them, even as 98% say AI has improved how they work.

That result comes from the AI contracting company Ironclad, which has released its second-annual “State of AI in Procurement Report,” surveying more than 800 procurement professionals working in direct and indirect procurement.

To get over that hurdle, Ironclad says that procurement-specific AI tools often deliver more value than general AI tools for procurement, which require less setup and configuration but lack context about their business.

"Procurement teams have access to many AI tools, but these aren't connected to each other and are missing the context needed to actually understand what's in their contracts and their supplier relationships," said Dan Springer, CEO of Ironclad. "The biggest opportunity for AI in procurement is moving beyond analyzing one document at a time to understanding the full contract lifecycle and knowing what's in their contracts and supplier agreements to navigate risk, uncover savings, and avoid value leakage."

This story was originally published by Supply Chain Quarterly. Read the full story at Supply Chain Quarterly →