Procurement Will Never Be the Same: Order.cos AI is Rewriting the Rules

Years ago, one of my students at Zicklin School of Business was in the process of launching an olive oil company, and he consulted me about the best way to assess reliable suppliers. After some brainstorming, he built an RFP generator using machine learning that could intake relevant metrics from each supplier, standardize replies, and accelerate the decision-making process.

At the time, this was an innovative application of AI. But in 2025, its capabilities have evolved dramatically. After years of working in procurement, it's clear that what was groundbreaking in the past is now part of a much larger transformation – AI is fundamentally changing how businesses buy.

Forget everything you know about procurement.

No matter how sophisticated your company’s procurement process might seem, it’s still riddled with repetitive manual work. Vetting vendors, comparing prices, evaluating the best products for your unique needs, and troubleshooting order issues slowly chip away at your day. After spending hours on these tasks, you’re likely left with a pile of other pressing priorities.

To help keep track of all the moving pieces in their procurement puzzle, teams often create spreadsheets or invest in ordering systems. However, these resources often don’t account for real-time market conditions or supplier performance.

Even with what appears to be a fully functioning procurement strategy, you’re still flooded with decision after decision. As a result, it’s difficult – if not impossible – to proactively identify and respond to potential problems. So, how are you supposed to manage?

While best-in-class procurement functions are often marketed as a solution to these challenges, they don't always deliver as promised. They claim to cut costs on products, but a few dollars saved on an order isn’t worth sacrificing reasonable delivery times, product quality, package consolidation, or other business requirements. They promise to find alternatives when items are out of stock, but sifting through 50+ vendor websites for the best options only delays the entire ordering process.

 Best practices are only as good as what they consider – and traditional procurement hasn’t considered what’s now possible with Order.co’s AI. 

Order.co’s AI defines what it means to execute best-in-class procurement

If you haven’t heard of us, Order.co is a B2B ecommerce platform that simplifies business buying by combining the ease of online shopping with the sophistication of world-class purchase order and AP automation. In my role there, I’m dedicated to integrating AI into our system to help make our customers’ jobs easier and more efficient. From building agents that can offer 50+ vendor options per product to developing natural language processing (NLP) techniques that parse through hundreds of thousands of emails per day and share only the notifications that matter to you, we’re embracing the AI-as-companion model.

Order.co’s AI changes what it means to manage procurement. Using our vast data set of over 8.5 million orders and scraping product information from 42,000+ vendor websites, we give businesses optimized buying options in seconds. The AI continuously learns with each transaction, checking factors like vendor reliability, price fluctuations, delivery speed, and your unique preferences across your locations and teams. The result? Companies save an average of 5% on products they’re already purchasing, eliminate 50% of tedious procurement tasks, and proactively avoid supply chain disruptions.

Ordering platforms often make recommendations based on price alone. Order.co’s AI procurement software takes it several steps further by understanding the deeper relationships between products. For example, it’s easy to recommend a different brand of coffee cups when your usual order is out of stock. But what if those cups don’t fit the lids your business already has? Our AI processes millions of product attributes – dimensions, weight, recyclability – and finds the best alternative to align with what you need right now.

If your business has multiple locations, each likely has different procurement needs. Your HQ in Boston might need snow shovels or salt for ice melting while your office in Nevada doesn’t. Your shop in Ohio might have enough storage to accept bulk orders while your New York City storefront may require smaller, more frequent deliveries. Order.co’s AI takes these nuances into account and only recommends products that each location actually needs – and from vendors that we know will deliver based on historical data.

Order.co’s AI provides guardrails that lead teams toward smarter, more efficient purchasing decisions — without the legwork of digging and gathering the necessary data to make the best decisions. 

Order.co: AI procurement software that works for you

We’re at the tipping point of a major shift in how businesses buy. While traditional procurement workflows rely on countless hours of manual work, Order.co’s AI does all the heavy lifting by giving directions, so all procurement professionals need to do is drive.

Whether you’re managing purchasing for a multi-location retail chain, healthcare clinics, or a boutique hotel, procurement should never be a bottleneck. Our AI ensures it isn’t.

I’d love to show you how Order.co’s AI procurement software can adapt to your unique business needs. Schedule a demo and see the benefits for yourself.

If you’re interested in leveraging AI for your business but not sure where to start, I host a bi-weekly webinar series to help back-office professionals like you overcome barriers to AI adoption. Join me to stay ahead of AI trends in procurement and finance.