Does AI Ensure Procurement Teams are More Shock Resilient?

Over the last few years, the role of procurement has become a more prominent role within business operations, following the recognition of how it can help build operational resilience.

With this revelation comes a higher demand for teams to act, with teams unable to meet this demand without some significant changes,

To meet this demand without risk of burning out, procurement teams are turning to AI more than ever.

In its annual report, Keelvar finds that procurement teams who are using AI are more likely to develop resilience when facing market shocks.

Building resilience

Keelvar is an agentic sourcing platform which helps procurement teams meet operational demands. It uses automation which transforms practices into scalable workflows with machine-learning optimisation, thus developing faster sourcing cycles, better decisions and a more visible return on investment. 

Keelvar has published its annual survey, taking insights from procurement leaders across North America, Europe and more. The report, Procurement at an Inflection Point, takes responses from procurement professionals across the C-suite and managerial level, across industries such as automotive, food and drink, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and retail.

The report finds that organisations which have adopted AI or sourcing automation in the past 12 months are 3.7 times less likely to suffer during volatility. These companies are more likely to avoid demand contraction during tariff-driven disruption and other geopolitical concerns. They are also more likely to maintain growing or stable demand, despite where the source of disruption begins. This demonstrates a structural advantage, as the form of disruption does not impact demand, rather than a situational one.

On the other hand, companies which fail to implement AI are more likely to be impacted and face disruption to demand, with the inability to mitigate risk.

"The data this year is the clearest signal we've seen that procurement technology adoption isn't a nice-to-have — it's what separates organisations that absorb volatility from those that get hurt by it," says Alan Holland, Founder and CEO of Keelvar.

"The performance gap between leaders and laggards is real, measurable, and widening. What is most concerning in the data is how many organisations are sitting out not because they lack budget or capability, but because they've convinced themselves they already understand AI well enough to conclude it's not for them. That's a dangerous position to be in."

Shifting priorities

The market in the last few years has shifted significantly, but many of the key issues remain familiar. In the report, 65% of procurement leaders cite inflation and rising costs as their top external concern to business stability. This is followed by a range of other pressures which are adding up to wreak instability, including geopolitical instability (44%), supply chain disruption (41%), tariff volatility (40%) and growing supply chain complexity (38%). 

Alongside these increasing pressures, teams themselves are finding it increasingly difficult to keep pace with demand, particularly when working on decision-making. Out of the leaders, 69% reported that decision-making speed and quality is a leading internal obstacle, demonstrating that there are structural concerns of keeping pace.

This leads to a growing gap in the speed of market change and organisational response, but the reason for this is clear – many organisations are not correctly using the tools that are available to them.

According to the survey, 53% of the businesses that have not yet adopted procurement technology are in a constant state of reactive fire-fighting, where they are unable to build resilience because they are constantly having to respond to events. The companies that have adopted both AI and automation, however, have resolved collaboration and process friction and are now focused on cost management (59%). 

These companies have been able to go back to basics of procurement because they have been able to modernise and built operational resilience. Instead, companies who are trailing behind in their adoption are unable to fulfil their procurement roles because they are consistently responding to market shifts.

The top priorities for 2026 are cost savings and cost avoidance, with 50% of respondents putting them in their top three, with them acting as the bottom three for just 16% of leaders. Risk mitigation closely followed in prioritisation, whereas sustainability ranked in the bottom three for 53% of respondents. This demonstrates how the market is moving procurement towards a more defensible process in the near-term.

Barriers to adoption

A significant report finding is that governance model acts as a stronger predictor of technology adoption that organisational size or industry. Organisations with top-down mandates were twice as likely to have deployed AI and automation together, which has demonstrated the most resilience. In the companies that have already adopted both technologies, 80% plan to pursue advanced sourcing optimisation as their next investment. 

This is compared to 35-43% in other groups, suggesting that early adoption creates confidence in moving forward with infrastructure.

More than 60% of leaders who have cited 'bad' reasons for not adopting AI – such as concerns about job loss, beliefs that the technology is immature or that its not a priority – say they have a strong understanding of the technology. On the other hand, out of those who claim structural barriers – such as budget or vendor complexity – only 17% respondents said they have a strong understanding.

"Confidence is not the same as readiness," the report concludes.

"The biggest blocker to progress is not ignorance, but overconfidence. CPOs who feel they already understand AI may be the ones who would benefit most from an audit of where they actually stand."

Procurement leaders want to better understand the market, with 43% of respondents wanting access to pilots or trials to AI and automation before they commit to the product. As less than 15% of leaders cite upfront technology cost as a barrier to adoption, it demonstrates that adoption mostly occurs due to failures in scaling, governance and change management.

The shifting market is changing how procurement leaders act, but it is also changing how technology works within these operations. In order to avoid being left behind, leaders need to change how they interact with the technology and become more open to modernisation.