Source: ProcureAbility via PR Newswire. Summary and analysis by S2V Advisory.
What happened
ProcureAbility released its CPO Benchmark Study, based on responses from 160 senior procurement leaders at large enterprises spanning 21 industries. The headline finding is a widening gap between what leadership expects of procurement and what procurement teams are equipped to deliver.
According to the study, 61% of respondents face higher savings expectations than in 2025, while 71% describe their team capacity as moderately or highly constrained. On technology, 31% are turning to automation but only 11% are scaling AI across multiple processes. Half of respondents named poor data quality as the leading barrier to scaling AI. Late procurement engagement was cited by 43% as the biggest obstacle to delivering value, and only 6% reported having predictive or real-time supplier monitoring tools.
What it means for buyers
The numbers describe a squeeze most procurement leaders will recognize: bigger targets, the same team, and AI that stalls once it meets real data. Two findings matter most.
First, data quality, not AI capability, is the binding constraint. Buying another AI tool won’t close the gap if spend, supplier and contract data can’t be joined reliably. The practical first step is a data-readiness assessment that shows what can be trusted today and what needs to be built, scoped as its own piece of work rather than buried inside a pilot.
Second, late engagement erodes value before sourcing even starts. When procurement arrives after requirements and suppliers are already chosen, leverage is gone. Getting into the demand conversation earlier is often worth more than a harder negotiation later.
For teams under capacity pressure, the answer is prioritization: focus scarce effort on the renewals and categories where value is largest and fastest to realize, and measure results in invoices rather than projections. See our Assess service and our perspective on why AI procurement pilots stall.