Talking Supply Chain: Procurement’s AI stress test

This week’s episode of Talking Supply Chain takes a very real look at something most procurement teams aren’t talking about: the biggest AI risk next year isn’t the technology, it’s the people guiding it. As Sudhir Bhojwani, co-founder and CEO of Oro Labs, told Talking Supply Chain podcast host Brian Straight, “People are still trying to figure out what they want to do with AI … but what people don't know is how to truly solve their end-to-end process problems.”

His point is clear: organizations are racing toward AI without knowing how to use it well and the consequences are coming fast.

Bhojwani offers a rare window into why so many early AI efforts are falling short. Teams are building isolated copilots, experimenting with small agents, or using AI merely as a productivity tool and never integrating it into the full procurement workflow.

“They keep doing those experiments without the full end result in mind,” he says. The result? Lots of activity, very little transformation, and an illusion of progress that hides deeper structural gaps.

One of the most compelling moments in the episode is Bhojwani’s example of a global pharmaceutical company rolling out AI at scale. Their AI agent began with only 5–10% accuracy, but after months of human-in-the-loop training and guardrails, it now performs compliance checks at 90% accuracy.

“It didn’t start there,” Bhojwani notes. “It improved because of the human feedback. You need humans to work with the AI; that’s the right combination.”

It’s a reminder that successful AI adoption isn’t about replacing people; it’s about designing systems where people and AI learn together.

Top 5 Insights from Bhojwani on AI’s next phase in procurement

1. The biggest AI risk isn’t failure, it’s untrained teams using it.
2. Experiments aren’t failing, they’re too isolated to matter.
3. Human-in-the-loop isn’t optional, it’s how AI actually improves.
4. 2026 will be procurement’s AI stress test.
5. Multi-agent AI is coming, and it will change the procurement function.

Listen to the full episode today.

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