In the latest installment of its series on AI-first procurement, CPO Rising examines how teams are caught between heavy tactical workloads and aggressive plans for agentic AI across Source-to-Pay. The piece draws on Ardent Partners research sponsored by Ivalua and positions Part 11 around a shift from tactical execution to intelligent orchestration.
Tactical work still fills the calendar
On the ground, more than 80% of procurement teams say tactical work consumes at least half of their daily capacity. Fragmented systems and manual steps still dominate and slow operations.
Agentic AI on a three-year horizon
Ambition runs in the opposite direction. More than 80% of organizations plan to deploy agentic AI across sourcing, supplier risk, contract management, intake, and accounts payable within three years. Near-term roadmaps commonly include contract obligation tracking, continuous supplier risk monitoring, autonomous sourcing events, and demand orchestration. CPO Rising characterizes the gap between today’s reality and those intentions as the largest ambition-to-reality gap in the market.
Automation speeds tasks; orchestration rewires the process
The article argues that closing the gap requires more than stacking AI tools. Automation makes discrete activities faster or removes them from human workloads, it creates efficiency but does not reshape how procurement runs. Orchestration ties sourcing signals, supplier risk data, contract terms, purchasing activity, and payment processing into a continuous operational loop. It changes sequencing, routing, and decision architecture; exceptions reach the right person at the right moment, with governance clear enough that the organization trusts what the system does.
2026 priorities cluster on modernization
Procurement leaders’ stated priorities for 2026 reinforce the same direction: leveraging new AI technologies leads at 52%, pursuing digital transformation at 46%, improving internal collaboration at 42%, and streamlining current systems and processes at 33%. CPO Rising notes that pursuing all of those at once without a clear sequencing framework is where many organizations lose momentum, and that the path to AI-first procurement in practice still runs through operational foundations many teams are still building.
The analysis reflects perspectives from 311 CPOs and senior procurement leaders across 25 industries worldwide, as reported in Ardent Partners’ study *The Path to AI-First Procurement: Closing the Gap Between AI Ambition and Execution*.
