“Now with agentic AI, RFPs are becoming and will become even leaner, and they'll cut to the chase a whole lot faster. There'll be a lot less fluff.”- Barri Horn, Director of Product Marketing for AI for SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass' strategic procurement portfolios
Even as procurement teams embrace digital tools, the RFP process continues to frustrate stakeholders. Complex, manual, and often repetitive, many still wonder whether RFPs genuinely add new value or simply weigh down the strategic sourcing process.
With AI’s rapid evolution, is it finally time to rethink how we design, build, and manage RFPs?
In this podcast episode, I speak with Barri Horn, Director of Product Marketing for AI for SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass' strategic procurement portfolios, about how agentic AI is rewriting the playbook. Barri shares what’s really different about AI-powered sourcing and the hidden changes procurement leaders need to be ready to navigate.
Here, in Barri’s own words, are some stand-out moments from our conversation:
AI Tackles the Repetitive Grind
“AI is doing really, really well tackling that repetitive work, those manual steps that can eat up a whole lot of time, setting up that RFP, which is researching vendors, looking at those latest market trends from sources that you trust. And oftentimes, let's be honest, digging through old emails and files to determine what's worked well in the past.”
As someone who’s spent years watching teams burn hours assembling RFPs from scratch or struggling with outdated templates, I see this as one of the most valuable AI-driven shifts. We’ve known for a long time that the real bottleneck isn’t just the final evaluation step; it’s all the groundwork that has to be done before the RFP even hits the supplier's inbox.
Letting AI handle supplier research, trend scanning, and historical lookbacks gives procurement their time back to focus on true stakeholder alignment and strategy.
Smarter Questions and Fewer Gaps
“It's also going to suggest questions. And I'm talking smart questions, right? Maybe not ones you'd immediately think of on your own. For that trade show booth example, I probably could have asked and should have asked, what contingency plans are in place for weather, or shipping delays, or tech failures…”
The quality of the RFP defines the quality of the supplier decision, yet most RFPs still suffer from blind spots. It is not because we aren't smart or diligent, but because we’re human. We forget the less obvious factors until it’s too late. Well-designed AI-enabled tools don’t just automate, they elevate. They nudge procurement toward sharper questions, drawing on wider data than any single category manager could access. That’s how we can make RFPs more strategic, not just run them faster.
Impact of Organizational Risk Appetite
“Companies and teams with a high risk tolerance, they're going to let AI run more of the process for them… complete RFP sections with minimal human oversight”
I’ve worked with enough CPOs to know that risk appetite drives more than sourcing decisions; it shapes how and when teams adopt innovation. The lesson here is to map your AI usage to your company or team culture. For transactional categories, it might be appropriate to let AI take the wheel. For more strategic engagements, it’s an assistant, not a driver. There’s no one size that fits all, and that’s exactly the point.
Trust and Transparency Are Non-Negotiable
“There’s a big misconception in that using AI at work is just like using it at home. In a business context… you're making decisions that affect revenue, customers, compliance, your job, real stuff with real consequences, which is exactly why foundational training is so critical.”
This was one of the most important takeaways from our conversation. Trust in AI isn’t automatic. It has to be earned. That means being clear about where the data comes from, how recommendations are made, and how humans remain in the loop. Without this transparency, adoption will stall, no matter how good the tool is. I've seen too many tech rollouts fail because users didn't trust the outcomes. That’s a change management problem, not a technology one.
Don’t Skip Change Management
“It's never too late to start communicating proactively or to launch training programs or to identify those internal champions. I think the key is just to acknowledge it and then reset and restart.”
If you're already in-flight with a sourcing transformation and realize you may have overlooked change management, don’t panic… but do act fast. You can still build momentum by naming the gap and investing now in champions, communication, and feedback loops. The earlier teams feel ownership, the better your chances of success. I’ve always believed that successful procurement transformation depends more on people than process, and Barri’s advice reinforces that.
The Spreadsheet Is Officially Obsolete
“I remember back to the days of building a spreadsheet. You get your seven RFP responses back… trying to compare them all. You’ve written the questions in a way that you hope drives apples-to-apples comparison. But it’s still extremely interpretive to read something and put it into a box on an Excel sheet.”
The illusion of objectivity we used to create in Excel was just that: an illusion. AI can surface key differences, normalize responses, and highlight red flags automatically, helping procurement to make better decisions with more confidence.
