Our new weekly series brings industry insights around Ardent Partners’ AI Rising 2026: The State of Procurement AI report, sponsored by ORO Labs and Fairmarkit, examining how CPOs and senior procurement leaders are navigating the AI transformation, and revealing where AI adoption is accelerating, the challenges that remain, and the strategies separating today’s leaders from tomorrow’s laggards.
In Part Three this week, we explore chief procurement officer priorities for their department.
CPO Priorities in 2026: Familiar Goals, New Energy
The top priorities for 2026 tell a clear and increasingly urgent story. Cost savings stands firmly at the top, cited by 75% of all CPOs. Since 2022, the percentage of leaders ranking savings among their top three priorities has almost exactly doubled, underscoring just how dramatically the pressure on the function has intensified. A distant second is the necessity to manage and mitigate supply risk (48%).
While it ranks well behind cost savings, its importance remains undiminished. Persistent geopolitical instability, shifting trade dynamics, and ongoing supply chain fragility continue to shape procurement strategy, forcing leaders to balance aggressive cost objectives against the foundational need for resilience and continuity.
The next two priorities — “digital transformation” and the “deployment of AI within procurement” — are rapidly becoming interchangeable terms, making it pretty logical why nearly an identical 31% of CPOs have prioritized both. 2026 is the year where these two concepts merge into a single strategic initiative. Digital transformation and AI have become so deeply intertwined that in 2026, the two are functionally inseparable. A technology transformation initiative that lacks an AI component, no matter how small, can be deemed neither significant nor successful, as it ignores the function’s largest short- and mid-range opportunity to accelerate change. To speak of a digital transformation in 2026 without speaking of AI is to describe a movie without a plot and actors. After all, one cannot spell strategic without the A and I.
Following the technological focus is the closely related fifth priority: the mandate to improve procurement data access and accuracy identified by 25%. Some CPOs are smart to recognize that even the most advanced AI is essentially a powerless and inept “Wizard” stuck behind a curtain if the underlying data that powers it is fragmented and deeply flawed.
Download your complimentary copy of AI Rising 2026: The State of Procurement AI to explore the latest research, benchmark your organization’s AI readiness, and prepare for the future of intelligent procurement.
