Rise of the AI-Enabled CPO

A new Zero100 survey of chief procurement officers and sourcing executives reveals that 85% agree that agentic AI "is going to fundamentally change the way sourcing organizations operate," yet 78% want people to retain control of all strategic work. These latter sentiments may be insufficiently bold or realistic given how quickly technology developments are unfolding.   

 As AI forces the work of people to become more strategic, sourcing capabilities and the outcomes that sourcing professionals are accountable for must evolve. Changing this reality and perception, in part, requires a visible shift in the type of work that sourcing functions perform and a more ambitious set of objectives.  

Find the full report on members.zero100.com, including a foreword by Shailendra Sadera, CPO at Unilever. You can read a preview below.

Transformative AI-Powered Sourcing 

A Zero100 survey and analysis last year shows 90% of supply chain leaders are piloting or implementing single AI agents or systems of agents, with sourcing second only to planning in adoption. Mars Wrigley, is just one example of what this looks like in practice. While use cases highlight the game-changing role of AI agents, they are only one chapter in sourcing’s digital transformation playbook, and CPOs must figure out the right balance of human-machine involvement. (Find a decision matrix on this in the full report.) 

In our survey, we asked participants to indicate where each of the eight “core” sourcing JTBD sat on a spectrum from 100% human ownership at one end to AI-based autonomous execution with human oversight at the other. The results show that, today, most of the activity is either “assisted” or “augmented” by technology. When asked how this picture might look in three years’ time, sourcing leaders there is also a notable shift in sentiment away from 100% human and assisted in favor of greater augmentation, automation, and autonomous execution.  

Looking to the future, 81% of CPOs and sourcing executives agree that digital twins, scenario modeling, and simulation “will be the next big wave of technological advancement” for the function.  Use cases such as these require greater collaboration and connectivity between sourcing and other supply chain functions to identify issues, evaluate tradeoffs, and optimize decision making. Walmart is one company addressing this gap by developing what Zero100 calls Power Threads between otherwise functionally siloed digital capabilities, with sourcing an early sponsor of its Trend-to-Product tool.  

Your Future Hybrid Workforce 

Digital sourcing in the agentic age reformulates the talent equation, in terms of the number of people, the type of roles, and the skills required to operate world-class procurement organizations. The task for CPOs is to build human-machine teams that deliver more value using fewer people. And those people need different skills to the ones leaders have traditionally hired for and developed through corporate training programs.  

Leaders rank "agentic AI management" as their top skill investment priority (51% ranking it #1 or #2), followed by AI/ML literacy. In addition, people able to align business needs with tech solutions – Translators in Zero100’s terminology – are a precious, if scarce, resource, especially in organizations that prefer to build their own tools and agents in-house.  Just 4% of sourcing roles are currently Translators compared with Zero100's 15% benchmark. Another watchout, too, is the relatively low ranking of business and softer skills like storytelling, influencing, problem solving, and negotiation on leaders’ priority list. 

CPOs will need to be mindful of targeting an appropriate balance of digital and business skills in their upskilling efforts – especially for staff being redeployed away from tactical work – not just in their hiring practices.   

Find recommended actions for both AI-powered sourcing and your future hybrid workforce in the full report. 

In Summary 

The real disruption isn't the technology itself, but how boldly CPOs reimagine what their functions are for. The winners will stop treating AI as a bolt-on efficiency play and instead redesign their operating models so that anything machines can do, they will—and everything that truly matters is elevated and led by people.