In 2025, procurement leaders are navigating accelerating process complexity at the same time as they’re facing intensifying pressure from every direction.
Rising tariffs, inflation, supplier churn, and internal demands for speed and innovation are exposing cracks in the systems, workflows, and technologies that were never built for today’s pace. Today’s unpredictable regulatory landscape represents a major challenge for procurement departments. But it also presents an opportunity to reimagine how procurement operates, with AI at the center.
ORO Labs surveyed over 200 procurement executives at large enterprises across the U.S., U.K., Europe, and Canada to understand how teams are responding. The 2025 State of Enterprise Procurement Agility Report paints a picture of a function in transition, straining under legacy tech, experimenting with AI, and trying to move faster without breaking compliance.
Here are five of the most eye-opening takeaways:
Nearly half of respondents say the pressure on procurement has increased, with 16% calling it the most intense they’ve seen in the last three years. In the U.S., that figure is 21%.
What’s fueling the stress? Tariffs and inflation are tied as the top external disruptors, each cited by 50% of executives. Supplier instability, regulatory changes, and cybersecurity risk trail behind but remain persistent concerns.
Despite the increased demands, 38% of procurement teams have shrunk in size over the past year, even as 39% reported budget increases. With smaller teams expected to deliver more, tech investment is accelerating. But not all tools are delivering on their promise.
Almost two-thirds of procurement teams now use more than 10 tools. Yet only 8% say those tools are delivering the ROI they expect.
The problem is fragmentation. Over half of respondents require IT support just to make basic system changes, and 15% say they can’t modify their procurement tools at all without IT intervention.
This lack of agility has downstream effects. Forty-two percent report breakdowns in collaboration between procurement, finance, and supply chain. Others cite reduced productivity, missed cost savings, and difficulty managing risk.
In short, the tech stack is bloated, and it’s slowing teams down.
A striking 85% of procurement executives say they’re piloting or using AI. Use cases range from automating routine tasks and analyzing supplier data to more advanced applications like risk scoring.
But trust hasn’t fully caught up. Only 40% of AI users trust the technology to make decisions with minimal oversight. More than half (52%) say they always review outputs, and 8% remain unsure if AI is reliable at all.
Even more revealing: only 49% of executives clearly understand how agentic AI works in a procurement context. The appetite is there, but maturity and readiness lag behind.
To meet speed and savings goals, some procurement teams are quietly raising their risk tolerance. One in four executives admit to working with suppliers that have lower credit ratings or limited documentation.
At the same time, 24% of organizations say they’ve tightened risk controls, showing a stark split in strategy across enterprises.
This divergence highlights the increasingly complex environment teams must navigate. Risk is no longer a black-and-white metric. It’s a tradeoff, and different organizations are making dramatically different bets.
Sixteen percent of executives say they can onboard a replacement supplier in under a week. But nearly a third still cite the loss of a key supplier as one of their top concerns.
This tension reveals an important truth: speed is only part of the agility equation. True procurement agility only comes as a result of visibility, integration, no-code development, and smart decision-making.
To build resilience, procurement teams need more than dashboards. They need connected systems, automated workflows, and data-driven processes that adjust in real time. That’s where orchestration—and smarter AI integration—comes in.
The message from the report is clear: procurement teams are doing their best with the tools they have—but those tools often fall short. To succeed in 2025 and beyond, organizations need to rethink how procurement operates, connects, and adapts.
That means shedding legacy tools that don’t integrate. It means moving beyond intake-only solutions to true orchestration. And it means embracing AI not just as a bolt-on, but as a core component of a smarter, more connected procurement layer.
The 2025 State of Enterprise Procurement Agility Report goes deeper into the data, unpacking how procurement teams are adjusting their strategies in real time.
Download the full report to explore: