Will IT or procurement lead AI agents?
Large companies have already embedded tech teams inside procurement. Smaller companies need creative ways to replicate this.
Who will lead AI agents in procurement, IT or procurement?
Large companies have already answered this question. The best procurement teams in the world already have engineers and product managers reporting to the CPO, not the CIO. They brought technology inside procurement because they learned that when IT leads process tools, adoption drops. Procurement keeps buying over email.
The problem is that most companies don't have the scale to build a dedicated tech squad inside procurement. So they need to get creative:
- Appoint a technology "champion" within the procurement team. They don't need to code, but they need to evaluate AI agent vendors and be the focal point for implementation.
- Outsource the technology, but not the ownership. The vendor brings the agent ready to go, procurement decides what to automate and how to measure results.
- Allocate someone from IT part-time inside procurement. Not as support that shows up when called, but someone who joins the meetings and understands the process.
- Start small. An agent running in 30 days generates more internal credibility than a 50-slide business case asking for budget and headcount.
The principle holds for any company size: whoever lives the process needs to own the technology that automates the process.
If you lead procurement and are still waiting for IT to solve this, ask yourself: when was the last time IT solved a procurement problem quickly?