From Experimental to Embedded: 5 Traits of Frontier Teams Navigating AI in Procurement

The AI era in procurement has reached a tipping point. For forward-thinking finance and operations teams, the question has shifted from “Should we try AI?” to “How deeply can we embed it into our workflows?” so they can stay ahead and operationalize the tech into daily practice.

At Pulse 2025, Zia Mansoor, Microsoft’s CVP of Cloud & AI Platforms, explored what it means to be a frontier firm—an organization that’s not just adopting AI, but scaling it to drive a competitive advantage. His keynote, Becoming a Frontier Firm: How Leaders Win the AI Shift, revealed key traits of AI-first organizations that have evolved their approach from experimental to fully embedded for maximum efficiency and ROI.

These companies are putting AI at the center of their operations, integrating the human experience and producing exponential productivity and innovation. Here’s how:

1. They lead with outcomes, not algorithms

Frontier teams start with impact, not infrastructure. They identify the biggest friction points in their spend and procurement process—manual approvals, lack of visibility, slow cycle times—and then ask, how can AI accelerate this?

As Mansoor shared, “The teams that succeed with AI aren’t the ones chasing every new model—they’re the ones clear on the business outcome they want to achieve.”

For finance leaders, that means connecting AI procurement software investment directly to measurable results: less maverick spending, faster budget decisions, better compliance, improved automation. The tech is the enabler; the transformation is financial.

2. They build a foundation of clean, connected data

Every successful AI initiative begins with trustworthy data. But too many organizations still manage spend information across disconnected spreadsheets and systems. Frontier firms invest in leading procure-to-pay platforms that unify their purchasing, approval, and payment data into one connected flow.

This single source of truth enables more than automation—it creates the conditions for intelligent forecasting, anomaly detection, and strategic supplier management.

“If you want AI to work for you, you need to give it something to work with,” said Chad Gaydos, Procurify CEO, during the keynote. “Unified spend data is where the AI edge begins.”

3. They scale AI beyond pilots and embed it into every workflow

The temptation with AI is to start small—a pilot project here, an automation test there. Frontier teams think bigger. They design for scale from the beginning by embedding AI into the daily workflow of their teams.

That means rethinking approval processes, change management, and skill-building. These organizations invest in training their teams to work with AI, not around it. The key here is augmenting decision-making rather than replacing it.

“The future isn’t AI replacing humans,” said Mansoor. “It’s humans who know how to leverage AI who will replace those who don’t.”

Optimizing workloads also directly impacts and improves the employee experience by outsourcing repetitive tasks to AI and allowing subject matter experts to focus on strategic decision-making to unlock efficiencies.

4. They embrace governance as a growth enabler

AI introduces new dimensions of responsibility: data privacy, accuracy, and auditability. Rather than treating governance as a constraint, frontier teams see it as a foundation for sustainable growth.

Finance and procurement leaders who establish clear guardrails early—on how data is used, when human approval is required, and how AI decisions are validated—create trust internally and externally. This trust accelerates adoption.

“Strong governance doesn’t slow innovation. It gives organizations the confidence to innovate faster,” Gaydos explained.

5. They measure progress, not perfection

AI transformation doesn’t happen overnight, even if adoption has seemingly exploded over the last six months. According to Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index Survey, there’s been a 64% YoY increase in business leaders who report using AI more than once a day.

But leading teams understand that progress is iterative—they scan for signals, make bets, test, measure, and continuously refine. Whether it’s cutting purchase cycle time or improving spend forecast accuracy, they celebrate incremental wins while keeping the long-term vision in view, encouraging experimentation and bolstering a culture of learning to “bend the curve on innovation.”

“The thought process here should be, if you had something where a 10x improvement could transform your business, that’s where AI can bend the curve on innovation,” explained Mansoor.

This mindset allows frontier firms to operationalize AI at a sustainable pace—turning isolated experiments into embedded intelligence that compounds over time.

A framework for embedding AI in procurement

As you evaluate if your organization is properly set up to become a frontier firm, these are the critical questions to be asking:

Enriching employee experiences

• Do your employees use AI to onboard faster, get answer instantly and navigate policies easily?
• Do you use AI agents to personalize learning and guide career growth?
• Are you automating end-to-end onboarding, benefits, and internal mobility processes?

Reinventing customer engagement

• Do your customer-facing teams use AI to get ready for customer meetings?
• Do you use agents to triage customer issues and inquiries across multiple channels?
• Do you have multiple agents that fully resolve customer problems?

Reshaping business processes and workflow

• Do operations teams use AI to work more efficiently?
• Do AI agents proactively gain insights and help improve operations?
• Are you automating department workflows like procurement, compliance, and IT support?

Bending the curve on innovation

• Do your developers leverage AI to speed up product development?
• Do AI agents automate testing, docs, and releases?
• Are you implementing multiple agents across your product development pipeline?

As AI reshapes every aspect of business, procurement is emerging as a strategic command center. It’s where spend visibility, operational efficiency, and financial control converge.

Teams that embody these five traits aren’t just keeping up—they’re setting the standard for what’s next. Finance and procurement pros ready to learn from frontier firms and map their journey can make the leap from AI-assisted to AI-augmented and stay ahead.