In 2008, a category fact base took a team six months to build by hand. With AI, much of it may now take days. What did the slow work build besides the fact base? A century-old lesson from factory electrification, the productivity J-curve, and what recent studies of AI at work suggest.
AI & Digitalisation in Procurement
How Nordic procurement functions move from AI pilots to everyday work, and what it takes in data, process and people. In EBG's Xperience 2026 survey, reliance on digital procurement tools rose from 55% to 71% in a year.
Agents on the agenda, Excel in the ad
In 2024, the CPO Outlook room expected AI to change procurement a lot, and mostly used it to write. Two years on, agents are being built in Nordic procurement functions, while most job ads still name Excel and Office. Every 2024 answer, what has moved since, and four ways to read the gap.
Agents, platforms, applications or not yet: which road to AI?
Who builds the AI, who owns the data it runs on, and who answers when it is wrong? Three companies taking different roads to AI in procurement, and what the 2025 and 2026 evidence says for and against each.
Where does procurement’s time actually go?
For years, procurement leaders have given the same answer: somewhere between 10 and 40% of the week is strategic, never a majority. What they said in a CPO Outlook 2023 workshop and in EBG’s surveys since, what Deloitte finds, and why behavioural research suggests the split holds, even with AI.
Built during the merger, not after it
Novonesis rolled out a new way of buying while two companies were still becoming one. Louise Noer on using a merger to build procurement, not defer it.
Two chairs, one process: what the room maps on day two
Two chairs, one process | CPO Outlook 2026 14–15 October 2026 Hotel Birger Jarl, Stockholm The 23rd EBG | Network summit Digitalisation & ways of working Two chairs, one process: what the room maps on day two Procurement is asked to govern AI for the rest of the business and rebuild its own function with […]
Next generation procurement: a very limited number of seats at CPO Outlook 2026
CPO Outlook 2026 · Next generation procurement · 14–15 October, Stockholm The path that built every procurement professional is changing. The people on it should compare notes. Since 2010, EBG has asked good people in procurement one question: if you could sit down with others who share your challenges, what would you want to discuss? […]
What AI-first looks like from the inside
Closing keynote · Day 2 · 15 October Mauricio Bozzo, Group CIO of Arrive, closes CPO Outlook 2026 on 15 October at Hotel Birger Jarl in Stockholm. He spent ten years in procurement before moving into technology leadership. His session is about the company you get when the pilot phase ends and the leaning in […]
How much foundation before you move?
How much foundation before you move? | CPO Outlook 2026 14–15 October 2026 Hotel Birger Jarl, Stockholm The 23rd EBG | Network summit Digitalisation · Operating model Everyone says data is the foundation. Everyone says AI is the future. Two surveys published for 2026 measure what happens in between — and the gap between individual […]
Procurement won the argument
Procurement won the argument | CPO Outlook 2026 14–15 October 2026 Hotel Birger Jarl, Stockholm The 23rd EBG | Network summit Operating model & category design Kraljic told purchasing to become strategic in 1983, and it worked — procurement owns more of the business than it ever has. The question nobody planned for is which […]