Gartner Survey Shows Just 36% of Chief Procurement Officers Are Very Confident in Ability to Redesign Function for AI

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Only 36% of chief procurement officers (CPOs) are very confident in their ability to redesign roles and processes around AI, according to a survey from Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company.

The Gartner survey of 101 CPOs, conducted in January-February 2026, revealed that individual AI productivity gains are not yet translating to broader team or enterprise outcomes. Analysts shared the latest findings with attendees at Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo in Barcelona.

“Procurement teams are seeing productivity gains from GenAI, but without intentional redesign of roles and processes, those gains remain confined to the individual level,” said Fareen Mehrzai, Senior Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice. “To improve returns on their AI investments and unlock organizational gains, CPOs must design next-generation human roles focused on guiding AI toward achieving real financial outcomes, rather than mere efficiency gains.”

Procurement’s AI Productivity Paradox

The Gartner survey showed that current GenAI deployments in procurement are improving individual productivity in areas such as time savings, amount of output and quality, but those results decline significantly at the team output level. Gartner describes this disconnect as the AI productivity paradox.

Mehrzai told attendees that this gap exists because procurement operating models have not evolved quickly enough to reflect the impact of GenAI on existing roles. When AI automates part of a role, the individual may become more productive, but the organization does not automatically realize the same benefit unless work is redesigned across the function.

To improve ROI on procurement’s AI investments, Mehrzai shared Gartner recommendations for CPOs to redesign procurement roles and processes for AI productivity:

Redesign roles around AI: Evaluate current procurement roles, identify common tasks, and separate work into innately human tasks and AI-native tasks.
Align AI gains with financial outcomes: Focus on cost optimization and revenue growth rather than relying only on efficiency metrics.
Update productivity measures: Expand performance measures to capture innovation, complexity and new outputs created through AI-enabled work.

“Traditional productivity measurements focused on output-per-unit of time are increasingly out of step with a modern, AI-enabled procurement function,” Mehrzai told attendees. “To maximize the value of GenAI, CPOs must evolve productivity measures to capture its innovative outputs and new sources of value, while next-generation human roles take on more complex and cognitively demanding tasks.”

Gartner clients can read more in: AI Productivity Paradox: Redesign Procurement Roles to Capture GenAI Productivity Gains. Nonclients can learn more in the webinar: Steps for Procurement to Become AI‑First.