AI is changing the way we’re thinking about and procuring technology

As many organizations move beyond experimenting with and piloting AI, discussions about purchasing software are quickly expanding to include broader questions about workforce strategy, technology systems, and even how companies define talent.

Rather than evaluating one AI tool or application against another, many organizations are trying to determine how their AI capabilities work across functions like HR, finance, IT, and operations, and how to design an enterprise operating model that fits these new needs.

It’s a whole new way to think about the tech procurement process.

“Procuring AI just for the sake of procuring AI makes no sense whatsoever, but procuring AI for a specific step that allows you to get smarter and better and more efficient in that step is smart,” said Harry Osle, partner and CHRO at the Hackett Group, an HR consulting firm focused on AI strategy, the digital transformation, and benchmarking metrics.

Many leading organizations are moving away from individual AI use cases and toward interconnected cross-functional AI systems that share data and infrastructure. For their HR leaders, procurement conversations are more dynamic and increasingly require HR’s involvement in workforce planning and the design of work, rather than simply software needs, experts told HR Brew.

“Leading companies, they’re working on looking at procuring anything that’s related to AI in a more centralized, organized way,” Bhushan Sethi, partner with PwC US Consulting, said. “So you can govern it. You can look at the ROI. You can think about ‘tokenomics.’ You can think about the risk considerations.”

HR leaders have emerged as valuable stakeholders in conversations about organizational technology infrastructure, and—depending on the level of AI maturity in an org or HR team— they’re making calls and offering considerations new to the function amid the ongoing AI transformation.

Real mature

“I would say the first thing you have to understand is you have to assess what your strategies are as an organization. Some organizations are in a growth mode, some organizations are trying to flatline. I would start off with what your strategic perspective is as an HR organization,” Osle told HR Brew, adding that at the Hackett Group, they’ve deployed a “leverageable strategy.”

A single AI purchase or new feature won’t solve every HR challenge, he said. A team’s maturity influences its procurement priorities and overall AI implementation plans.

“Organizations are at different levels of maturity,” Osle said. “Those organizations that are not as mature technically...have more angst around this.”

Before buying or building anything new, Osle said he advises clients to first understand which AI capabilities already exist inside an organization or HR department. Then measure that gap and design new AI initiatives that address it, adding that it’s also critical to consider employee skills in this equation.

It’s bigger than just HR

Leaders are beginning to evaluate their technology and labor spend together because they’re becoming intrinsically linked by the AI tools needed to get work done. So rather than viewing talent as exclusively human, HR leaders are being asked to forecast a workforce that involves humans, agents, automated processes, or some combination.

“As we think about workforce plans and budgets,” Sethi said. “We have to think about costs of tokens and cost of compute and consumption costs as part of that, because if we’re going to start trading labor costs for that, we need to get a full picture as the P&L owner, as a cost center owner, for my overall spend as a workforce.”

AI tech adoption conversations also require new questions and decisions about labor and token costs, employee location and workflow strategies, and employee training and skills mapping. People leaders are taking the lead on these bigger conversations, he said.

“Having the right planning assumptions behind it, having the right workforce model, so you can make a decision on where am I going to use talent, where am I going to use agentic, where am I going to use external vendors, all of that needs to be considered together, and so finance, HR, business, and IT need to be at the table,” he said, noting that the work is still emerging.

Inside the tech stack?

Strategic AI mapping doesn’t necessarily mean that every organization is rushing to build custom AI solutions in-house. HR teams are also continuing to work with their HR and work tech vendors to enable AI features, and shopping around when a key solution is not available in existing tech, according to Stephanie Clement, a senior director analyst at Gartner.

“Most HR functions are actually going to the tech that they own,” Clement said. “So the majority are going to their LMSs, their HCMs. They will have to change their master agreement to [adjust for] the token and AI consumption, but most are going to what they have already—and looking at features there.”

But even if toggling on a feature in an existing platform is part of the AI strategy, it still requires an understanding of intended business outcomes and a rethink of the workflow.

“We advise [clients] to pick one to three strategic goals within your organization and your HR function,” she said. “It can be efficiency. It can be experience...It’s aligning across the HRLT on what that vision [is]; how am I going to use AI for my function and for my employee experience? And then aligning. Once you have that vision, you can then look at all the use cases available and score those in a common way.”

Many organizations are asking whether a point solution fits into a broader AI architecture, how it integrates with existing systems, and can produce measurable business value.

It’s not all orchestration

After scoring, buying a standalone AI application may be the right move in some cases—particularly if the organization has an urgent business need or the expected return outweighs waiting for existing vendors to catch up.

“Thinking about your use cases and where you need speed to value,” Clement said. “That might mean that you need to buy a solution. If I’m on HCM XYZ and I need a really strong interview scheduling or interview assessment, and I need speed to value. I’m going to buy that versus aligning with your vendor roadmap…if it’s a strategic differentiation, that’s where you may build, but very few HR functions are building.”

Osle told HR Brew that HR leaders are thinking of long-term operating improvements rather than just immediate savings, as some AI investments may actually take years to fully demonstrate their value.

“HR more than ever is more technical than ever,” Osle said. “If you are an HR executive with a technology focus, you’re going to have a lot more impact in today’s and future world.”