New research of global procurement leaders reveals a widening performance gap between technology adopters and laggards – and warns that the biggest avoidable barrier to AI adoption is overconfidence.

Keelvar, the agentic sourcing platform built for all types of spend, today published its annual survey of procurement leaders across North America, Europe, and beyond. This year’s report, Procurement at an Inflection Point, draws on responses from procurement professionals spanning managers to C-suite, across a wide range of industries including automotive, manufacturing, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, and retail.

The central finding is stark: organizations that have adopted AI and/or sourcing automation in the past 12 months were 3.7 times less likely to suffer major demand contraction during periods of geopolitical and tariff-driven disruption than those that had not. They were also more likely to maintain stable or growing demand — a pattern that held regardless of the source of disruption, pointing to a structural rather than situational advantage.

"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 organizations that absorb volatility from those that get hurt by it," said 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 organizations 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."

The operating environment has fundamentally shifted

65% of procurement leaders cite inflation and rising costs as their top external concern, reinforced by a cluster of compounding pressures: geopolitical instability (44%), supply chain disruption (41%), tariff volatility (40%), and growing supply chain complexity (38%). At the same time, internal decision-making has not kept pace — 69% identify decision-making speed and quality as a leading internal obstacle, ahead of cost management itself.

The result is a widening gap between the speed of market change and the speed of organizational response. According to the survey, 53% of organizations that have not adopted procurement technology remain in a persistent state of reactive fire-fighting. Their more advanced counterparts have largely moved past that: teams with both AI and automation in place are now focused primarily on cost management (59%) — not because they're struggling, but because they've resolved the collaboration and process friction that was consuming their peers.

Cost savings and cost avoidance emerged as the top priority for 2026 — appearing in the top three for 50% of respondents and the bottom three for just 16%. Risk mitigation followed closely. Sustainability, by contrast, ranked bottom-three for a majority (53%), reflecting not a dismissal of its importance, but a market that is pushing procurement to be measurably more disciplined and defensible in the near term.

Resilience is built incrementally — and governance determines pace

The report finds that governance model is a stronger predictor of technology adoption than organizational size or industry. Where senior leadership has mandated adoption, just 10% of organizations have deployed neither AI nor sourcing automation. In bottom-up environments, that figure rises to 52.5%. Organizations with top-down mandates were also nearly twice as likely to have deployed both AI and automation together — the combination most closely associated with resilience outcomes.

Among organizations that have already adopted both technologies, nearly 80% plan to pursue advanced sourcing optimization as their next investment — compared to 35–43% across other groups — suggesting that early adoption creates the organizational confidence and infrastructure to go further, faster.

The report also surfaces a counterintuitive pattern in how non-adopters assess their own readiness. Of the respondents who cited what the research categorizes as "bad" reasons for not adopting AI — including beliefs that the technology is still immature, that it's not a priority, or concerns about job loss — more than 60% rated their understanding of AI use cases at the highest possible level. Among those who cited substantive structural barriers such as budget, vendor complexity, or difficulty navigating the technology landscape, only 17% did the same.

"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."

What procurement needs from vendors

The survey also asks what vendors could do better. The answer is less about product features and more about reducing the cost and friction of decision-making. 54% want real-world case studies that reflect their own spend complexity. 47% want clearer ROI justification. 43% want access to pilots or trials before committing. Less than 15% cite upfront technology cost as a primary barrier — reinforcing that most adoption failures happen during scaling, governance, and change management, not at the point of purchase.

"Vendors and partners can't just point to capability," said Holland. "Procurement teams are operating under real pressure and need to show results fast. The question CPOs are asking vendors isn't 'what does your product do?' — it's 'how quickly can you get us to measurable impact?' That's the bar the market is setting."

About the Report

Procurement at an Inflection Point is based on a survey of procurement and supply chain professionals across North America, Europe, and other global markets. Respondents span manager to C-suite level, with representation across direct materials, logistics, services, indirect materials, and MRO. Industries covered include automotive, manufacturing, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, hi-tech, and retail, with respondents drawn from organizations ranging from under $500M to over $5B in annual revenue.

Read the full report here.

About Keelvar

Keelvar is an agentic sourcing platform built to handle procurement teams’ growing need to do more with less. The platform combines automation that turns best practices into repeatable, scalable workflows with machine-learning sourcing optimization — the kind of analytical power that no spreadsheet or manual process can replicate. The result: faster sourcing cycles, better decisions, and a return on investment that shows up from the first event.

Over 150 global enterprises trust Keelvar to source across direct materials, logistics, services, and beyond — including Nestlé, Siemens, Maersk, and Mars. In a world where volatility is permanent, Keelvar is built for the environment procurement teams are actually operating in.

For more information, visit keelvar.com.

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Organizations with top-down mandates were twice as likely to have deployed both AI and automation together