Gartner: Are CPOs Confident in AI Redesign for Procurement?

At the Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo, it revealed that only 36% of Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) are very confident in their ability to redesign roles and processes around AI.

Gartner, a business and technology insights company, discussed these results at its Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo, which is regarded as one of the world’s most important gatherings of CSCOs and supply chain executives.

The Gartner survey of 101 CPOs, conducted in January–February 2026, revealed that individual AI productivity gains are not yet translating to broader team or enterprise outcomes.

Analysts shared the latest findings with attendees at the International Barcelona Convention Centre where the event is being held between May 18–20. During the three-day event, conversations across the Xpo have looked at predicting disruptions, achieving visibility and leading with AI and innovation.

Redefining human and machine output

Fareen Mehrzai, Senior Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, says: “Procurement teams are seeing productivity gains from GenAI, but without intentional redesign of roles and processes, those gains remain confined to the individual level.

“To improve returns on their AI investments and unlock organisational gains, CPOs must design next-generation human roles focused on guiding AI toward achieving real financial outcomes, rather than mere efficiency gains.”

The Gartner survey showed that current GenAI deployments in procurement are improving individual productivity in areas such as time savings, amount of output and quality, but those results decline significantly at the team output level.

Gartner describes this disconnect as the AI productivity paradox.

Fareen told attendees that this gap exists because procurement operating models have not evolved quickly enough to reflect the impact of GenAI on existing roles. When AI automates part of a role, the individual may become more productive, but the organisation does not automatically realise the same benefit unless work is redesigned across the function.

Gartner’s roadmap for next-gen procurement

To improve ROI on procurement’s AI investments, Fareen shared Gartner recommendations for CPOs to redesign procurement roles and processes for AI productivity:

• Redesign roles around AI: Evaluate current procurement roles, identify common tasks and separate work into innately human tasks and AI-native tasks.
• Align AI gains with financial outcomes: Focus on cost optimisation and revenue growth rather than relying only on efficiency metrics.
• Update productivity measures: Expand performance measures to capture innovation, complexity and new outputs created through AI-enabled work.

Fareen adds: “Traditional productivity measurements focused on output-per-unit of time are increasingly out of step with a modern, AI-enabled procurement function.

“To maximise the value of GenAI, CPOs must evolve productivity measures to capture its innovative outputs and new sources of value, while next-generation human roles take on more complex and cognitively demanding tasks.”