712: Reflections of an AI Contrarian w/ Alan Veeck

Art of Procurement

“It’s incumbent upon all of us to be change ready, to be curious, to always be learning because this overestimated technology today will truly be delivering huge results tomorrow.” - Alan Veeck, CEO & Founder at Summit Procurement

There are very few voices in procurement right now – or businesses in general, for that matter – who are raising the flag that all of the fear, enthusiasm, and hand-wringing over AI’s growing influence might be one big, collective overreaction.

Alan Veeck, CEO & Founder at Summit Procurement, is one such voice. In this episode, he shares with Philip Ideson why his contrarian attitude toward AI has little to do with his belief that AI will indeed revolutionize the space.

Alan explains how decades of seeing other technology hype cycles come and go have given him a more measured outlook for innovative or emerging digital breakthroughs (including generative AI) and why he thinks other procurement leaders should dial down the frenzy around AI that likely isn’t doing their teams, or the business, any favors.

In this conversation, Alan also talks about:

• Why he thinks AI is not going to disrupt the procurement job market nearly as much or as quickly as many people think
• How to separate the overblown capabilities from real-world use cases where AI can genuinely move the needle for procurement today
• How CPOs can embrace AI and maximize its impact without leading their teams, and the business, down a rabbit hole of new solutions and platforms that cause more problems than they solve

Links:

• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement
• Alan Veeck on LinkedIn
• Alan Veeck on Twitter