The Real Role of AI in Procurement

Everyone is talking about “AI in Procurement.” And frankly, I’m bored. Scroll through LinkedIn and you’ll see endless posts about:

• Automated PO processing
• Contract redlining in seconds
• Spend classification at light speed

Who cares?

Don’t get me wrong, efficiency is nice. But if all AI does is help us process administrative tasks faster, we have failed.

The “Faster Horse” Fallacy

We are just building a faster horse. The Real Problem Isn’t Speed. It’s Alignment.

The reason Procurement struggles isn’t because we process POs too slowly. It’s because the business doesn’t trust us. It’s because we measure “Savings” while they care about “Speed.” It’s because we speak “Compliance” while they speak “Growth.”

Using AI to automate admin doesn’t fix this. It just gives you more time to be misaligned.

Augmenting the “Head,” Not Just the “Hands”

The true power of AI isn’t in replacing the “hands” (typing, filing). It’s in augmenting the “head” (thinking, diagnosing).

We should be using AI to:

• Diagnose Friction: Not just asking “how many POs are late,” but analyzing “why does Marketing hate working with us?”
• Predict Misalignment: Spotting when a stakeholder’s goals have drifted away from our category strategy.
• Draft Strategy: Not just summarising spend, but synthesising thousands of data points into a coherent plan of attack.

From Tool to Partner

I built ProcureValue to look like a tool. It has dashboards. It has surveys. It uses AI. But that’s just the wrapper.

The core purpose isn’t to help you “do procurement.” It’s to help you think like a business partner.

It forces you to ask the hard questions. It exposes the uncomfortable truths about your relationships. And it gives you the evidence you need to have a real conversation, not just a superficial one.