TLDR: Deloitte’s 12th annual Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey for 2025 reveals that CPOs are heavily investing in digital procurement and artificial intelligence, including Generative AI and agentic AI, to navigate increasing market complexity. The survey, which gathered insights from over 250 CPOs across 40 countries, highlights a strong link between advanced technology adoption, talent development, and superior enterprise performance, with ‘Digital Masters’ achieving significantly higher returns on their digital and AI investments.
The 2025 Deloitte Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey, now in its 12th edition, underscores a pivotal moment for procurement leaders worldwide. The survey, which gathered insights from over 250 Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) across 40 countries, reveals a significant acceleration in investments towards digital procurement and artificial intelligence (AI), including Generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI. This strategic shift is driven by the need to manage increasing internal and external complexities, global supply chain disruptions, rising costs, and evolving regulatory demands.
A central finding of the survey is the strong correlation between the synergistic combination of technology and talent competencies and superior enterprise performance. Deloitte emphasizes that while technology has reached incredible levels of sophistication, human involvement remains crucial to maximize these investments. Organizations that prioritize a ‘human-centered digital transformation’ are significantly outperforming their peers across key procurement metrics.
Top-performing organizations, termed ‘Digital Masters’ in the report, are allocating a substantial portion of their budgets—up to 24%—to procurement technology. These leaders are seeing impressive returns on their digital investments. Specifically, top procurement organizations achieve three times greater returns on GenAI investments compared to their peers. Digital Masters, for instance, reported an average 2.8x return on GenAI investments, significantly outpacing ‘Followers’ who saw only a 1.6x return.
The impact on performance metrics is clear:
Cost savings: 96% of Digital Masters exceeded or met their plans, compared to 80% of followers.
Cost avoidance: 94% of Digital Masters exceeded or met their plans, versus 75% of followers.
Internal stakeholder satisfaction: 84% of Digital Masters exceeded or met their plans, compared to 59% of followers.
Supplier performance: 84% of Digital Masters reported exceeding or meeting their plans.
Risk management and talent development remain paramount for CPOs. In response to today’s volatile environment, procurement leaders are focusing on several key mitigation strategies: 74% identified finding alternative supply sources as the most effective approach, 64% prioritized enabling greater visibility into the supply chain, and 61% focused on enhancing supplier information sharing and collaboration.
Jennifer Brown, offering leader, supply chain and network operations at Deloitte, commented on the evolving role of CPOs: “As the role of the chief procurement officer continues to evolve, these executives are increasingly recognized as indispensable, trusted advisors to the C-suite. Our 2025 survey underscores the critical importance of CPOs serving as transformative agents of change — empowering organizations to harness the full potential of digitally enabled supply markets and driving value through vertically integrated solutions.”
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Another Deloitte expert added, “Procurement is at the forefront of managing increasing supply market complexity, and successful CPOs know harnessing the power of digital and AI is helping drive resilience, efficiency and growth. Organizations that prioritize both tech modernization and talent investment are better able to not only survive but thrive amid market fluctuations.”
