Hi {{FIRST_NAME|readers}},
Before getting into it… This week is your last chance to get a say in our End of Year Feedback Survey. Want to influence what we write about in 2026? Take 2 mins to fill it out:
2025 was the year procurement stopped talking about AI and started using it.
Not for grand strategic transformations. Not for impressive executive dashboards. But for the boring, manual tasks that actually drain our teams: invoice extraction, spend classification, data entry.
Companies like Pentair proved it: 90% accuracy and $15 million in working capital improvement by focusing on the unglamorous work.
To commemorate 2025 one last time, I'm highlighting the top 5 stories from all of the 2025” Monthly Top 5s”, based on your engagement. From 101 practical AI use cases to $1.4 trillion in real spend data, these articles cut through the hype and showed us what actually works.
What was your biggest procurement win from 2025? Reply and let me know. I want to hear what moved the needle for you this year.
Here are the top 5 stories that defined procurement in 2025.
Next week, we shift back to our forward-looking content.
Onwards!
How the Monthly Top 5 Works…
Every month, I comb through 1000+ articles across 40+ sources to bring you the best free procurement articles on the web.
My picks are based on what I feel is the most concrete, actionable and useful content I came across that month.
I sort through the noise so you don’t have to.
📰 This month is special: To commemorate the new year, I'm highlighting the top 5 stories from all of 2025 that made the biggest impact and delivered the most value.
No. 1 - 101 AI Use Cases for Procurement
No. 2 - Benchmarking Just Got Real: Sievo Analyzes $1.4 Trillion in Spend
No. 3 - Manual Task Automation Beat Strategic AI Projects in ROI
No. 4 - The Autonomous Sourcing Revolution is Underway
No. 5 - 9 Steps For a Modern Procurement Strategy
Let’s dive in!
No. 1 🥇
101 AI Use Cases for Procurement
We've been drowning in AI hype for months (years? 😅), but in 2025 GEP published something different: 101 specific, practical, detailed AI use cases for procurement with real business value. No "AI will solve everything" promises. Just a concrete list to get your “thinking juices” going…
The Bottom Line: The only useful AI trend info is about the problems AI can solve TODAY. The rest is just hope and hope is not a strategy. Start with rules-based automation, evolve to predictive analytics, then scale to autonomous agents that plan and act independently. The playbook exists.
Action Item: Pick 3 use cases from different maturity levels that match your current pain points (basic automation, predictive analytics, agentic AI). Calculate the time your team spends on these tasks weekly. 75% of that is your ROI baseline for AI investment (add the value of what the team could be doing instead on top).
👀 In Case You Missed It…
My Best Linkedin post of the month:
When are we going to stop ignoring this basic fact about procurement?
No. 2 🥈
Benchmarking Just Got Real: Sievo Analyzes $1.4 Trillion in Actual Spend Data
Most procurement benchmarks rely on surveys and self-reported data. Sievo changed the game in 2025 with their first State of Spend report built entirely on real transactions: $1.4 trillion in purchase orders, invoices, and supplier payments. That's roughly 2% of global GDP analyzed across six major industries.
Unlike traditional reports where teams estimate their performance on surveys, this reveals what top performer data actually says... Real KPI benchmarks across PO coverage, payment timing, invoice processing, and supplier concentration. Very cool!
The Bottom Line: Survey-based benchmarks show what people claim. Transaction-based benchmarks show what actually happens. The difference matters when identifying where you stand and what realistic improvements look like.
Action Item: Download the report and compare your KPIs against industry-specific benchmarks. Focus on gaps between top and bottom performers. That will help you develop your improvement roadmap.
Sievo State of Spend 2025
by Sievo
No. 3 🥉
Manual Task Automation Beat Strategic AI Projects in ROI
Finally, a reality-based look at AI in procurement with actual ROI numbers. The most successful implementations started with manual, repetitive tasks, not grand strategic transformations. Pentair achieved 90% accuracy in spend classification and $15 million working capital improvement focusing on boring processes like invoice extraction.
The Bottom Line: Companies winning with AI treat it like any other process improvement: starting small, measuring everything, and scaling what works. The most valuable AI applications are rarely the sexiest ones.
Action Item: Read over the use cases. If you’ve got similar pain points, try to find someone in procurement from the company on LinkedIn. Reach out. Start a conversation. Learn from their experiment.
10 AI Procurement Use Cases & Case Studies
by Cem Dilmegani at AI Multiple Research
👀 In Case You Missed It…
I recently spoke at the Zip Forward Conference:
A Skeptic’s Look at Artificial Intelligence in Procurement
No. 4 🏅
The Autonomous Sourcing Revolution is Underway
I love this ebook. It’s a delightful combination of the “What” and the “How” on Autonomous Sourcing. It’s gives statistics AND tangible workflows you can implement yourself to contribute to those statistics… I hope Keelvar keeps growing it. It’s useful for everyone, Keelvar customer or not.
The Bottom Line: 71%+ of sourcing events on the Keelvar platform are now agent-supported in some way. Since I think Keelvar's customers are probably skewed towards being market leaders, this isn’t indicative of the wider market (yet!) but certainly highlights an opportunity AND a trend.
In short, you should be working on automated sourcing as technology is ripe enough to correctly support it.
Action Item: Audit your categories. Do you have “high volume + standardized process” categories supported by lots of manual sourcing activities? These are ripe for automation.
The Autonomous Sourcing Cookbook
by Keelvar
👀 In Case You Missed It…
The Last 3 Sunday Night Notes:
1/ My 2026 ProcureTech Market Predictions
2/ The Top 25 Articles of 2025
3/ The Obsolete Procurement Platform Checklist
No. 5 🎖
9 Steps For a Modern Procurement Strategy
Ivalua just published a great practical procurement strategy guide. Instead of generic advice about "alignment" and "best practices," they deliver a concrete 9-step framework that acknowledges the reality: fragmented systems, rising costs, and shifting risks have made traditional procurement strategies obsolete.
The Bottom Line: Procurement strategies need to be built for 2025's realities: platform-enabled capabilities, real-time data visibility, and the ability to adapt quickly when things go sideways. This framework bridges the gap between strategy and execution by embedding automation, compliance, and stakeholder alignment into every step.
Action Item: Use their 9-step checklist to audit your current procurement strategy. Focus particularly on steps 3 (mapping current processes) and 9 (pressure-testing with risk scenarios). If you can't clearly articulate how your strategy handles supplier failure or inflation pressure, you have work to do.
How to Build a Successful Procurement Strategy in 2025
by Brigitte Naftalin at Ivalua
What was your favorite story this year? Why?
🌯 That’s a Wrap…
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Till next time,
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