Taming AI in Sourcing: Takeaways from the Zero100 CPO Summit

The Carlyle on Manhattan’s Upper East Side seemed an incongruous choice for an event on AI-driven transformation. Since it opened in 1930, the elegant, Art Deco-inspired hotel has been a favorite choice of US presidents, European royalty, and Hollywood celebrities. Everything about it – from the waiters in white tuxedos to the monogrammed pillowcases – screams tradition and stability.

A striking contrast, then, to what one attendee at Zero100’s inaugural CPO Summit described as the “Wild West” of AI solutions leaders are currently faced with. For those who braved the snow and freezing temperatures of Storm Fern to join us in New York, this was a chance to map out a vision for digital sourcing in the agentic age – and ensure their teams are well equipped for the journey.

Upgrading Digital Capabilities

Like the 100 CPOs and sourcing executives we surveyed just before Christmas, this group of leaders expressed clear views about AI’s impact: 

• All agreed (almost three-quarters “strongly”) that agentic AI is “going to fundamentally change the way sourcing organizations operate over the next few years.”
• 70% want AI/agents to “take over all tactical and transactional sourcing work.”
• 78% expect that between one-quarter and three-quarters of their teams’ current work will be done by AI agents by the end of 2028.

Given this outlook, CPOs are already focused on upgrading digital capabilities within their teams. “Agentic AI management” is easily their top investment priority for the next three years, our survey suggests, with 67% ranking this in their top five skills for development. AI/ML literacy and data analytics are next on their hit list.

A majority of respondents also say they expect to increase the number of digital sourcing experts on their teams during this timeframe, while almost half say they will hire more data specialists.

Our CPOs in New York agreed that more “AI-curious people” are urgently needed in their organizations, and that “AI is an enabler, not a threat.”

At the same time, several described a real fear of the new technology. Job security partly explains this – more than half of the executives we surveyed expect to shrink their headcount over the next three years. But there are other reasons too. One CPG procurement leader at the event said his people want to keep “exercising their brains”; they worry that if they lean on generative and agentic AI too heavily, they will lose this capacity.

The result? A reticence to embrace and experiment with AI tools, and get “excited about the opportunities,” as another leader put it. Reconciling these elements makes change management efforts (#6 in the skills ranking) essential, both to open minds and to set appropriate guardrails around how AI functions.

Redeploying People for Strategic Work

Ultimately, the opportunity with agentic AI should be about people spending more of their time on more interesting and impactful tasks – those that play to their strengths as human beings.

The CPO of one US automotive company said his main goal in deploying AI is to free up people to do strategic and value-adding work. As an example, he cited supplier risk and resilience. While AI provides valuable support in areas like monitoring disruptive events, people should own and lead this capability.

His view resonated with peers in the room. But it’s not the outcome most sourcing leaders say they are accountable for when investing in AI and digital technologies. ROI decisions, according to our survey, are determined primarily by cost reduction and efficiency gains. “Free up staff for more strategic work” was dead last, with just 13% of the sample selecting it as a top three driver.

While this is understandable, given the pressure to show tangible returns on AI investments, to me it suggests that many CPOs aren’t yet thinking boldly enough about how AI is going to transform their operating models. They must seize the chance to reimagine and redesign sourcing workflows, not just squeeze out incremental savings.

This includes prioritizing the development of softer business skills like creativity, influencing, problem solving, and systems thinking (a recent Zero100 survey found that 86% of leaders believe that a lack of integration and orchestration with other supply chain functions drags down their overall performance) – those near the bottom of the ranking above. 

Without these softer skills, people who are redeployed away from tactical to more strategic work – a shift that two-thirds of sourcing leaders expect to make – won’t be equipped to fulfill their potential in the hybrid human-machine workforce of the future. 

Amid all the talk about AI technology, the task for CPOs is to ensure that in their future-state functions, anything that can be done by machines is, and everything that truly matters is led by people.