From Pressure to Practice: How Procurement Teams Are Actually Getting Started with AI

AI mandates are coming from the top, but most procurement teams are still figuring out what that actually means on the ground. Behind every "we need AI" directive is a harder question: for what, exactly, and how do you prove it's working?

Join Francisco Martin-Rayo, CEO of Helios AI, in conversation with Mario Alberto De la Cruz, Digital Transformation in Procurement at Grupo Bimbo, and Paul Nelson, Commodity Hedging & Sourcing Consultant and former Whole Foods Sourcing CoE, for a candid, practitioner-led discussion on what AI adoption in procurement actually looks like right now.

Mario brings the enterprise change management reality, navigating mandates without defined use cases, limited budgets, and the challenge of getting a global procurement org to actually change how it works. Paul brings the tactical layer, formula-based pricing, cost component analysis, and what AI does (and doesn't) do for sourcing specialists who've been doing this for 20+ years.

Together, they'll map the gap between the AI promise and the procurement reality and share what it actually takes to close it.

What you'll learn:

• What "we need AI" really means when it comes from a CPO or COO and how to respond when the use cases aren't defined yet
• Where AI is delivering real value at the category manager and sourcing specialist level right now, not in theory
• How formula-based pricing and cost component analysis work and where AI is making them faster and more accurate
• What separates an AI implementation that sticks from one that gets quietly abandoned six months in
• How to get a 20-year sourcing veteran to trust an AI recommendation and what happens when they shouldn't
• What winning procurement teams have in common and what the ones still spinning are missing

Whether you're leading a procurement transformation, building the business case for AI, or just trying to get your team to use the tools you've already bought, this session will give you something concrete to take back to Monday.