883: The CPO Agenda: Scaling AI Beyond the Pilot W/ Darshan Deshmukh
Release Date: 09/14/2026
Ep 01: The Agentic Procurement Diaries: Why This Is a Once-in-a-Few-Centuries Revolution
Art of Procurement
Dear Diary… "I believe we are in the midst of a revolution — and I think in a revolution, we as a vendor also want to invest a lot in educating the community on what's really changing and how it's changing." This episode kicks off a new Art of Procurement podcast series, produced in partnership with Zycus. I sit down with the person who made the series possible to talk about why it exists and where agentic AI is really heading. Aatish Dedhia is the Founder and CEO of Zycus, a company that entered procurement in the early 2000s and has lived through every wave of its digitization since. He...
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883: The CPO Agenda: Scaling AI Beyond the Pilot W/ Darshan Deshmukh
Art of Procurement
“It’s all about building that momentum, creating the value, testing the hypothesis, and then continuing to challenge us to take it to that next level.” Darshan Deshmukh, President at ProcureAbility AI adoption in procurement is accelerating, but experimentation alone does not equal transformation. With organizations launching pilots, testing new platforms, and exploring agentic capabilities, procurement leaders need to keep a clear connection between the technology they adopt and the business outcomes they are trying to create. In this episode, Kelly Barner is joined by Darshan Deshmukh,...
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EP 016: Startup of the Week: FlockScore W/ Matthew Spencer
Art of Procurement
“The earlier you can catch risk, the cheaper it is to solve.” - Matthew Spencer, Founder of FlockScore Procurement teams have access to plenty of information when evaluating a new supplier, from certifications and financials to technical capabilities. What they often lack is visibility into a more practical question: How does this supplier actually perform? In this episode of Art of Procurement’s Startup of the Week, we talk with Matthew Spencer, Co-Founder and CEO of FlockScore, a platform building a collective intelligence layer for supplier decisions by bringing together anonymized,...
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882: Reengineering Procurement for Greater Impact W/ Polly DeSouza
Art of Procurement
“If you want a seat at the table, you’ve got to pull up the chair.” - Polly DeSouza, APAC Transformation Leader Procurement teams have spent years talking about the need to move away from tactical and transactional work and create more time for strategic priorities. As AI begins to take on more of that work, the opportunity to finally make the shift is growing. The question is whether procurement teams are ready to take advantage of it. In this episode, Philip Ideson is joined by Polly DeSouza, an APAC transformation leader whose career spans finance, procurement, consulting, and...
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EP 015: Provider of the Week: Tradeverifyd
Art of Procurement
“It’s more the translation of visibility. It’s not so much visibility. Visibility is there, but it’s what do you do with that?” - Mike Prorock, CEO, Tradeverifyd Supply chain risk has become both more complex and harder to anticipate. Geopolitical shifts, regulatory changes, multi-tier supplier dependencies, and an overwhelming volume of data are forcing procurement teams to look further into their supply chains and make decisions faster when something changes. In this episode of the ProcureTech Insider, Jim Cahalan speaks with Mike Prorock, CEO of Tradeverifyd, for a Provider of the...
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881: Owning Transformation: How to Successfully Lead Procurement Through Change W/ Gretchen Vance
Art of Procurement
“Don’t ask AI to do something that you don’t know how to do yourself.” - Gretchen Vance, Vice President Procurement at Forest Lawn Parks and Mortuaries Procurement transformation often comes down to a leader’s willingness to push for change, even when the path forward requires taking a risk. For Gretchen Vance, Vice President of Procurement at Forest Lawn Parks and Mortuaries, that once meant putting two pieces of paper on her CFO’s desk: a proposal for an e-procurement system and her resignation. In this episode, Philip Ideson speaks with Gretchen about the transformation she has...
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EP 014: Provider of the Week: Sievo W/ Sammeli Sammalkorpi
Art of Procurement
“The expectation level of procurement is rising. Today's stuff that was not possible a year ago, that felt like science fiction three years ago, is something that we can create for our customers today.” - Sammeli Sammalkorpi, Co-founder & CEO, Sievo For CPOs and their teams, procurement data has never been more abundant… or more challenging to harness. Demands go far beyond savings: teams are being asked to link procurement value to broader business goals, manage complexity, and adapt to the rapid rise of AI. In this episode of the ProcureTech Insider we speak with Sammeli...
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880: The State of AI in Procurement: Who’s Getting the ROI? W/ Nick Heinzmann
Art of Procurement
“There’s an absolute risk of procurement’s role and scope being diminished by AI, unless we embrace new ways of working.” - Nick Heinzmann, Head of Research, Zip According to new research from Zip, only 17 percent of organizations can demonstrate clear ROI from AI today. The difference between those seeing results and those still struggling offers some timely and important lessons for procurement. In this episode, Philip Ideson welcomes back Nick Heinzmann, Head of Research at Zip, to unpack findings from Zip’s 2026 State of AI in Spend report. They explore what separates...
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879: The AI Pilot Phase is Over: How to Move From AI Investment to Genuine Business Impact W/ Joseph Postiglione, Sr.
Art of Procurement
“If you're not completely sure about what you want to try to achieve, how will you know you ever achieved it?” - Joseph Postiglione, Sr., Author, Protecting Expected Outcomes in the Age of AI AI investments are accelerating, but many organizations are still struggling to turn promising pilots into the business outcomes they expected. The technology may work as intended, but the original business case can quickly get lost once implementation begins. In this episode, Philip Ideson welcomes back Joseph Postiglione, author of Protecting Expected Outcomes in the Age of AI: Why AI Implementation...
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EP 13: Making Sense of the Procuretech Landscape: Practical Insights for CPOs W/ Samir Khushalani
Art of Procurement
“The biggest risk today is not making the wrong AI decision. It is making no decision at all while everyone else is learning.” Samir Khushalani, Senior Advisor, Art of Procurement Procurement leaders now face more technology choices than ever, with new AI-enabled solutions emerging constantly. In this environment, picking the right tools can be overwhelming, and procurement often struggles with knowing where to start, how to avoid analysis paralysis, and ensuring their tech choices drive real business outcomes. In this episode, Philip Ideson speaks with Samir Khushalani, Art of...
info_outline“It’s all about building that momentum, creating the value, testing the hypothesis, and then continuing to challenge us to take it to that next level.” Darshan Deshmukh, President at ProcureAbility
AI adoption in procurement is accelerating, but experimentation alone does not equal transformation. With organizations launching pilots, testing new platforms, and exploring agentic capabilities, procurement leaders need to keep a clear connection between the technology they adopt and the business outcomes they are trying to create.
In this episode, Kelly Barner is joined by Darshan Deshmukh, President at ProcureAbility, for a CPO-level discussion about moving from AI experimentation to meaningful procurement transformation.
Darshan shares what he is seeing across procurement organizations as AI maturity increases, including why so many teams remain focused on efficiency and productivity and what separates those efforts from more intentional transformation. He and Kelly also discuss the importance of starting with a business problem rather than a technology or use case, as well as the evolving role of agentic AI, data quality, human judgment, and organizational culture.
Listen to this episode, to hear Darshan discuss how to:
-Move beyond isolated AI pilots, and toward intentional transformation
-Start AI initiatives with the business problem and desired outcome
-Use AI to identify risk signals and accelerate decision-making
-Build trust through stronger data, transparency, and measurable results
-Expand procurement’s contribution beyond cost and risk
-Create a culture where experimentation and learning can happen without fear of failure
Links:
Darshan Deshmukh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darshan-deshmukh/
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