Three Ways AI Makes Procurement Smarter

In 2017 Gartner predicted that artificial intelligence (AI) would benefit procurement and sourcing technology. That moment has arrived, according to Mike Quindazzi, managing director at PriceWaterhouseCoopers and top financial-tech influencer. "We're now in the golden age of AI, where advancements come from voluminous sets of data, new algorithms being created, computing power and the ability to do this in the cloud at scale," said Quindazzi. Procurement data has exploded because procurement has evolved into something called "intelligent spend management," which oversees all corporate purchasing processes including direct and indirect purchases, travel and external labor. Quindazzi cautions that while AI has many use cases in procurement, such as rating vendors, "there will always be a human at the end of AI processes, so there needs to be a sense of accountability."