Become irreplaceable by AI
As AI begins to automate everyday tasks, buyers must focus on strategic activities that are difficult for technology to replicate.
Buyer, if you bought into the story that AI won’t replace you, you’re being naive.
AI truly won’t be able to perform all of your functions (at least not yet). It can’t sit at a negotiation table and sense when a supplier is lying, nor can it convince a stubborn internal stakeholder to change their mind about a project.
But if it automates 30% of the tasks you do today, the chance of your team being downsized by 30% is extremely high.
So, forget the cliché that "those who know how to use AI will keep their jobs." That’s just the baseline; it’s not what will save your career in the long run.
What you must do is become excellent at the things AI cannot do. Make yourself irreplaceable.
Examples:
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Real relationships: AI doesn’t grab coffee, it doesn’t build trust, and it doesn’t solve problems by "making some noise" when a shipment is late. Face-to-face rapport with suppliers is still your domain.
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Questioning requirements: AI (for now) lacks the full company context and cannot judge if a purchase is truly necessary—or if the specifications even make sense.
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Spend optimization strategy: A real-world example I saw was a buyer who decided to investigate if purchasing a boiler would be cheaper than leasing one. The final result: R$2M in savings over 3 years.