Is AI coming for your procurement job? Here’s the short answer: yes.
The longer answer? Yes, but procurement practitioners who can adapt and evolve have a chance to remain relevant in the field.
CEOs Are Warning Us About AI Coming for Your Job
“Totally, totally gone”. That’s how OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently referred to the elimination of entire job categories.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, recently warned that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years. A New York Times article suggested that for some recent graduates, the AI jobpocalypse is already here.
Altman and Amodei aren’t the only ones who have issued similar warnings. These aren’t industry observers or futurists who are simply commentating on the market – rather, they are CEOs who will soon begin the trim back human staff numbers as AI capability grows:
- Jim Farley (Ford Motor): "Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S. AI will leave a lot of white-collar people behind." (Note that Farley refers to all white-collar jobs, not just entry-level).
- Marianne Lake (JPMorgan Chase): Anticipates a 10% reduction in operations headcount due to new AI tools.
- Andy Jassy (Amazon): Expects the company’s overall corporate workforce to be smaller, stating, “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today.”
- Micha Kaufman (Fiverr): Wrote in a memo to his staff: “This is a wake-up call. It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person—AI is coming for you.”
- Tobi Lütke (Shopify): Announced no new hires unless it can be proven that AI isn't capable of doing the job.
- James Reinhart (ThredUp): Predicted that AI will "destroy way more jobs than the average person thinks."
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Stop Sugar-Coating It
Why aren’t more people panicking about a coming AI jobpocalypse? One of the reasons is that for every CEO who warns us about AI job loss, a dozen others will reassure white-collar workers with one of the following myths.
AI will create more jobs than it destroys
Yes, AI will generate some new roles, but the speed and scale of automation is likely to outpace job creation, leading to net job losses. The other issue is that even brand-new jobs are quickly replaced as AI improves. For example, prompt engineering, described as “the hottest AI job of 2023” and fetching salaries of up to $200k, is now obsolete due to AI advancements.
AI is just a tool for efficiency
This myth suggests that AI is merely a “helper” enhancing human work. In reality, it can fundamentally change job structures and leads to elimination rather than mere efficiency.
Only low-skill jobs are at risk
Many assume that only entry-level or low-skill positions are threatened by AI. But it’s hard to ignore the fact that AI is increasingly capable of performing complex tasks, putting higher-skilled jobs at risk as well.
Workers will easily transition to new roles
This belief overlooks the need for significant retraining and may ignore barriers such as access to education and resources. Also, see point one: what new roles?
Government and companies will protect workers
There’s an assumption that policymakers and corporations will implement sufficient measures to protect jobs or support displaced workers. The Trump Administration’s AI Plan proposes AI literacy and skills development, jobs to support data center infrastructure buildout, and retraining and upskilling for individuals.
But as Henry Wu of Techpolicy points out, the plan “avoids the hard questions about how AI will reshape the future of work, and who will have a say in that process. Who decides if a job is to be created or eliminated?”
The Future of Procurement Jobs: Facing the Reality
Unfortunately, procurement will not be immune and is in the crosshairs for AI job loss. Here are two scenarios we need to consider:
Complete Elimination of Procurement
Picture a world where procurement departments are virtually non-existent. AI systems could take over tasks like analyzing trends, negotiating contracts, and managing suppliers, all without human intervention. As companies increasingly rely on AI for efficiency, entire job categories such as customer service are already beginning to disappear (consider how much of your current role involves “service” or answering routine questions from stakeholders).
If you’re in procurement, it’s time to take these warnings seriously and start preparing for a landscape where procurement is an automated tool rather than a function.
Automation of Most Procurement Tasks
More realistically, we’ll witness a wave of automation hitting the routine, tactical parts of procurement. Tasks like purchase orders and supplier onboarding will likely be handled by machines that can execute them faster and more accurately than humans. So, what’s left for you? The strategic aspects of procurement will still require a human touch, but let’s be honest: many professionals may not be ready to pivot to high-level relationship management, innovation sourcing, and trend-spotting.
If you’re not actively thinking about how to adapt, you could find yourself at a disadvantage while AI agents manage the daily tasks.
Something else to keep in mind is that AI will still (in the short-term, at least), need human management. In his excellent article on AI agents in procurement, Philip Ideson imagines a typical category manager of the future who might oversee five specialized agents: a market intelligence agent, a contract compliance agent, a risk-monitoring agent, a negotiation prep agent, and a performance analytics agent. “The human,” suggests Ideson, “orchestrates the agents, sets priorities, and handles tasks requiring judgment, creativity, or relationship management.”
Procurement of the Future: Agile, People-Focused Problem Solvers
So, what’s the way forward? In the future, we will no longer need procurement practitioners whose main job is to react to a “buy” signal from the business. We need to become highly agile, people-focused problem-solvers and relationship-builders. This means engaging with stakeholders at a level well beyond anything AI is capable of, understanding their needs, and anticipating market trends before they become urgent.
Even the strategic aspect of procurement will rely heavily on AI. Deep research can be conducted in the blink of an eye, potential disruptors can be analyzed, and various scenarios can be proposed—all while generating risk mitigation plans in an instant. Where our human skills can really add value is in interpreting the data and making nuanced decisions based on context and relationships.
Moreover, our ability to convince stakeholders to act on this information is crucial. Storytelling, persuasion, and influence will enable us to translate complex insights into compelling narratives that motivate action.
Time to Adapt
Feeling alarmed (and more than a little depressed)? The real danger we face when standing at the edge of so much change is falling into despondency about the future of the profession.
Instead, we need to do what procurement does best, and turn these insights into action.
While the challenges of AI are real, there’s hope for those who are willing to adapt. The clock is ticking, but with the right approach, we can transform these challenges into opportunities for growth and success.
Interested in learning how the Una team is adapting to AI impacting procurement jobs and ways we can help support your team? Contact us today so you're prepared for the future!
