New Study Finds That While Adoption Varies by Industry, Procurement Professionals Are Widely Embracing AI

Ironclad study of 800 procurement professionals finds AI adoption strongest in Finance, Technology, and Business Services, while Retail, Healthcare, and Transportation approach AI more cautiously

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Ironclad, the leading AI contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform, announced the publication of its first annual State of AI in Procurement Report. The report, which surveyed 800 American procurement professionals at companies with over 1,000 employees, explores adoption rates, sentiment, and the top use cases for artificial intelligence in the procurement field. 

Click here to download the full 2025 State of AI in Procurement Report.

The first annual State of AI in Procurement Report, commissioned by Ironclad, was a double opt-in survey conducted by the independent research firm We Are Talker. The 2025 report includes seven chapters addressing differences in AI adoption across industries, top use cases, and the biggest opportunities for AI in procurement. A few key findings of the report were:

Procurement is embracing AI on the whole, but levels of adoption vary by industry

• 73% of procurement professionals report that they're already using AI for procurement use cases.
• Adoption varies widely by industry despite strong averages, with Finance (91%), Technology (89%), and Business Services (83%) at the front of the pack, followed by Manufacturing (76%) and Energy (73%). Transportation (70%), Healthcare (68%), and Retail (65%) saw the lowest numbers in terms of AI adoption.
• The top AI use cases for procurement teams were tracking and managing supplier contractual commitments (77%), workflow automation and procurement orchestration (67%), using a conversational AI assistant for procurement related queries (67%), generating reports and dashboards (63%), drafting and defining technical requirements (63%), and data analysis (62%).

Procurement professionals, along with lawyers, are beginning to embrace the idea of fully autonomous AI agents

• 22% of respondents said they are comfortable letting AI handle complex tasks on its own, with 40% being comfortable with the idea of fully autonomous AI.
• The 2025 State of AI in Legal Report found that 20% of lawyers were comfortable with the idea of fully autonomous AI.

AI is helping procurement with both day-to-day tasks and long-term career goals 

• 77% of respondents say AI improves how they work and 79% say it helps them meet business goals.
• 79% agree that using AI tools will help them achieve their career goals more easily.
• 67% believe that AI could create more career growth opportunities.

Contracting is a proven procurement AI winner

• 80% of procurement leaders across industries use AI for contracts and find it to be highly impactful, making it one of procurement's reliable and mature AI applications.
• The highest impact use cases for AI in contracting were monitoring compliance, generating insights, tracking expiration dates and renewals, importing existing contracts, and summarizing contractual relationships for a quick understanding.

On October 16th, join procurement leaders from Anthropic, Cloudflare, Ramp, DaVita, and Ironclad for a virtual roundtable - discussing the findings of our 2025 State of AI in Procurement Report, real use cases of how procurement leaders are using AI, challenges and solutions in the industry, and more. Click here to save your spot for the virtual roundtable.

About Ironclad
Ironclad is the leading AI contract lifecycle management platform, trusted by global innovators like L'Oréal, OpenAI, and Cisco. Contracts power every business, yet outdated, manual processes are painful and costly. Ironclad transforms agreements into engines of strategic growth - accelerating revenue, reducing risk, and unlocking operational intelligence at scale. Recognized by Forrester, Gartner, and IDC as a category leader, Ironclad is also one of Fortune's Great Places to Work and Forbes' 50 Most Promising AI Companies, and backed by Accel, Sequoia, Y Combinator, and BOND. For more information, visit www.ironcladapp.com.

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Paul Chalker
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SOURCE Ironclad Inc.