Ironclad Survey Finds Procurement Professionals Adopt General AI Tools Widely But Struggle to Connect and Scale Them Across Their Business

Procurement teams are expected to move faster and deliver more value as AI raises expectations. The majority of procurement professionals are embracing AI, but usage is fragmented across single tools and use cases. While most are using general AI tools for procurement which require less setup and configuration but lack context about their business, procurement specific tools often deliver more value. Additionally, the survey found that companies with more than 1,000 employees or mature AI governance policies are more likely to use procurement-specific AI tools, see better results for strategic work and better understand supplier relationships.

"Procurement teams have access to many AI tools, but these aren't connected to each other and are missing the context needed to actually understand what's in their contracts and their supplier relationships," said Dan Springer, CEO of Ironclad. "The biggest opportunity for AI in procurement is moving beyond analyzing one document at a time to understanding the full contract lifecycle and knowing what's in their contracts and supplier agreements to navigate risk, uncover savings, and avoid value leakage."

New findings illustrate how that shift is playing out in practice:

• AI usage is wide, but not deep: 
  • No individual AI use case outside contracting has more than 40% adoption. Instead, organizations are applying AI across 14 different use cases, including procurement data analysis, supplier discovery and evaluation, spend analysis and forecasting, and identifying cost-saving opportunities.
  • 41% of AI users combine a general assistant with at least one procurement- or contract-specific tool.
  • 29% rely on specialized AI tools without a general assistant
    • 48% of specialized users report better visibility across supplier relationships, compared to 37% of those without a specialized tool.
    • 47% of specialized users report better risk analysis compared to 37% of those without a specialized tool.
    • 29% of specialized users report AI automating manual tasks like due diligence and SLA tracking, compared to 20% of those without a specialized tool.
  • 8% don't currently use AI tools for procurement.
• Contract AI expectations extend beyond automation to deeper commercial insights: 
  • 21% of contract-AI users say AI has been most impactful for managing contract approvals, amendments, and extensions today. 52% expect it to be one of the biggest future benefits.
  • 49% expect AI to deliver value by helping teams understand the full commercial context of contracts.
  • 45% use AI for contracting to extract and summarize terms, 41% draft and review contracts, 40% assess contract risk, and 40% track expiration dates.
  • 98% of contract AI users have had at least one problem with their tools, with 57% reporting security concerns, 45% accuracy issues, and 42% a lack of support or training from vendors.
• Impact scales as companies grow and their AI policy matures:
  • 84% of companies with 1,000+ employees use specialized AI tools, compared to 60% of companies with 500 or fewer employees.
  • 73% of companies with 1,000+ employees report more strategic work, compared to 59% of companies with 500 or fewer employees.
  • 67% of companies with extensive AI guidelines report more strategic work, compared to 58% of companies with basic guidelines.
  • 53% of companies with 1,000+ employees say AI has improved visibility into supplier relationships, compared to 38% of companies with 500 or fewer employees.
• AI's value is real, but its time savings are not universal: 
  • 98% of AI users say the technology has improved how they work.
  • 63% say they spend more time on strategic and complex work.
  • 33% spend more time reviewing and checking AI outputs than they save.
• AI brings career gains and workload strain to VPs and above:
  • 99% of VPs and above agree that AI helps them achieve their career goals compared to 84% of managers and below.
  • 35% of VPs and above report the sharpest workload increase, compared to 20% of directors, and 13% of managers.
  • 29% of VPs and managers report spending more time reviewing AI outputs than it saves them.

Additional resources
Click here to download the full 2026 State of AI in Procurement Report. Register for our upcoming webinar on October 28 at 10 AM PT. We'll dive into the report's findings with procurement experts Tom Mills from Procurement Protagonist Ltd., Ruth Hicks from Harvey, and Michael Shields from Tropic.

About Ironclad
Ironclad is the AI contracting platform that accelerates business. Contracts are easy and insightful, and agents push work forward with you in control. Whether buying or selling, Ironclad unifies the entire contract lifecycle on one intelligent platform, giving leaders the visibility they need to move faster and make better decisions. Ironclad is trusted by leading companies like Associated Press, Canva, Databricks, L'Oréal, and Notion, recognized by Forrester, Gartner, and IDC as a category leader, and backed by Accel, Sequoia, Y Combinator, BOND, and Franklin Templeton. For more information, visit www.ironclad.ai.

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SOURCE Ironclad Inc.