Transform Procurement Performance With Intelligence and Gen AI

On this episode of the “Gen AI Breakthrough” podcast, Chris Sawchuk and Nic Walden discuss the concept of digital world-class performance and its implications for organizations in today’s volatile environment. They explore how procurement teams can leverage AI and data-driven insights to develop agile supply chains that thrive amid uncertainty and complexity. By examining historical trends, they highlight how prepared organizations can capitalize on challenges to achieve significant savings and performance improvements.

Welcome to The Hackett Group’s “Gen AI Breakthrough” podcast, where top experts give actionable artificial intelligence (AI) insights, expert advice and strategies to achieve breakthrough business performance. In this episode, host Chris Sawchuk, principal and Global Procurement Advisory practice leader, and Nic Walden, associate principal and UK and Europe practice leader of Procurement Advisory – both of The Hackett Group^® – discuss the concept of Digital World Class^® performance and its implications for organizations in today’s volatile environment.

To begin, Chris and Nic discuss how rapidly AI, particularly generative and agentic AI, is being adopted across organizations. What was once a hot topic has now turned into widespread implementation, especially among Digital World Class^® organizations leveraging digital tools to operate more efficiently and effectively than their peers. These high-performing companies succeed even in turbulent, uncertain environments defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Nic emphasizes that procurement teams must build intelligent and resilient functions through stronger data usage, agile supply chains, and scenario planning. These challenges, while disruptive, have also created strategic opportunities for well-prepared teams to outperform others in cost savings and return on investment (ROI).

Prompt engineering has emerged as a crucial skill across organizations, with tools like Copilot and ChatGPT, enabling procurement professionals to streamline cost analysis, category strategy and contract drafting. Research shows that Digital World Class^® organizations are already achieving 2.6 times higher ROI with fewer staff and lower costs, and this performance gap is expected to accelerate. With agentic AI, even individual professionals can now build their own productivity-enhancing agents, signaling a major shift toward more empowered, AI-augmented workforces.

As AI – especially agentic AI – becomes more embedded in organizations, procurement is rapidly shifting. Operational tasks are increasingly automated, prompting a stronger emphasis on human strengths and skills that AI can’t replicate. Leading procurement teams are responding by investing heavily in talent development, often doubling training hours to build these capabilities. Many professionals now entering procurement come from nontraditional backgrounds, creating opportunities to blend technical and soft skills. Despite this, leaders often struggle to articulate a clear long-term vision for procurement’s future due to the fast-evolving and uncertain nature of technology and the global business environment.

In order to succeed, Nic and Chris explain, procurement must align closely with business strategy and expand its focus beyond traditional goals to include broader value creation and competitive differentiation. Currently, Digital World Class^® organizations outperform peers by wide margins in ROI, cost-efficiency, and productivity due to their strategic use of AI and their ability to adapt quickly. Looking ahead, the real value of AI lies not just in current productivity gains but in unlocking new opportunities. The future of procurement lies in building intelligent, resilient, and agile teams that can navigate disruption, leverage technology, and deliver strategic impact aligned with the evolving goals of the business.

Time stamps:

0:04 – Defining Digital World Class^® performance in a VUCA world.

7:06 – The rise of agentic AI and the talent transformation.

11:24 – Performance gaps and the impact of technology.

13:17 – The democratization of AI agents.

16:28 – The evolving human role in a world of widespread AI agents.

24:28 – Looking toward the future of procurement and AI.