In the global landscape of today, keeping up with the latest trends has never been so important.
Fortunately, when you are Koray Köse, it is par for the course.
Köse is the founder and Chief Analyst of KöSE Advisory. His company is positioned as a leading expert advisory and analyst firm that helps supply chain and procurement technology companies, corporations, and investors harness AI and advanced technologies to drive innovation and growth. The organisation provides sharp, actionable insights on the convergence of geopolitics, technology, sustainability, and emerging trends which guide leaders in scaling competitively, optimising investment strategies, and shaping impactful, profitable product roadmaps.
And operating a company like this at a time when the world is full of complexity is particularly apt. Looking back at the past five years, the supply chain and procurement space has battled the likes of a global pandemic, inflation issues and geopolitical instability involving the likes of trade tariffs, wars and more. And that only scratches the surface.
With this in mind, in order to succeed against this challenging backdrop, resilience and agility is key – something Köse possesses in abundance. Köse specialises in global risk management, geopolitics, value chain strategies, and advanced technologies. He excels in designing disruptive scalable business frameworks, advanced technology strategies, risk and governance processes, and deploying full-scale transformation projects to drive efficiencies through advanced technology and AI.
Put AI to work
At DPW Amsterdam 2025, Köse took the time to speak to CPOstrategy about the influence advanced technology tools were having in procurement. This year, the conference’s theme was ‘Put AI to Work’ which explored actionable AI-powered strategies for procurement leaders to unlock within their organisations. Köse believes that the likes of agentic AI is a powerful weapon but only if used correctly and not for technology’s sake. “Putting AI to work is more than simply taking a paper process and plugging it into technology,” Köse tells us. “It’s about being able to create more with less at scale and at a faster rate. Agentic AI really delivers if done foundationally right with faster processing of more data that could be more clustered at the same time and more decisions being made autonomously for the right agents that can contextualise without human involvement. That’s the game changer.”
Indeed, these are exciting times for procurement. Long gone are the days where the function is a boring, stifling place to be. Chief Procurement Officers are no longer siloed, hidden away out of sight. They are a value driver to businesses the world over and CEOs certainly know who their procurement teams are today, in what feels like a complete contrast to even a decade ago.
Agentic AI boom
Agentic AI is the next frontier in AI deployment from analytics to autonomous business execution. A quick walk through the expo floor at any conference and conversation of the capabilities of agents quickly fills the air. But for now, these conversations are not being backed up by tangible use cases – it is still more hype than tangible use cases at scale. Köse is sceptical about what agentic AI is bringing to procurement at this time and while he believes it has the potential to transform the function from traditionally reactive to a dynamic, proactive entity driving significant value in the C-suite and beyond.
“If done right, you’re talking about a true ability to drive the effectiveness of making the right decisions because now you can deploy agents to go through your entire database that in the past was very often not even looked at to make a decision,” explains Köse. “A lot of the decisions that were made were with insufficient data or even sometimes with the wrong data. Second to that, it’s the ability to scale because you can scale extremely quickly without having a user adoption problem because agentic AI doesn’t necessarily need a user if deployed correctly. This is where the whole dynamic of the procuretech world is hopefully converging once the slap-on solutions and narratives disappear and make way for tangible return on investment and not just vaporware.”
Koray Köse: A closer look
Köse is a futurist, technology and AI evangelist, renowned public speaker, and expert in geopolitical risk and value chains and adjunct professor. With over two decades of experience, he has advised executives, investors, policy makers and global stakeholders across many verticals and industries such as automotive, defence, pharma, life sciences, IT, high-tech, semiconductors, and FMCG.
As a trusted advisor and published author of over 100 works, Köse specialises in global risk management, geopolitics, AI, advanced technologies, procurement and value chain strategies. He designs disruptive business frameworks, governance processes, and full-scale go-to-market and transformation projects that drive scale, efficiency, resilience, and sustainable growth.
Köse is a board member of the Slave-Free Alliance, part of Hope for Justice, and a Senior Fellow at the GeoTech Research Center of GLOBSEC. He is also an active member of the Forbes Technology Council and a participant in NATO’s 2030: NATO-Private Sector Dialogues and as a Professor teaches MBA students at HULT International Business School and Northeastern University. Köse also regularly hosts Exiger’s Executive Forum and other key think tanks, with the next one scheduled for November 18th, 2025, in London.
Sustainability drive
Today, sustainability is a non-negotiable for many organisations. Over the past decade or so, consumer demands have majorly shifted and changing government regulations have also forced companies’ hands. In procurement and supply chain, AI is pushing the sustainability agenda by powering supplier collaboration, supporting decarbonisation and streamlining Scope 3 emission tracking. Sustainability is also an area that Köse is passionate about and he stresses that where AI can play an influential role in empowering greener thinking is by helping make stronger choices. “You get more information process per decision, which helps you with making better decisions,” explains Köse. “Take scope 3 for instance, you can go through multiple tiers of suppliers and not overlook something. Now a decision’s pace can be matched regardless of the complexity of the data. More informed decisions faster is important.
“For the ESG space, it’s give and take. We need to consider that AI runs on energy, which is quite significant for AI models. There is an impact from a sustainability perspective so we can’t overlook that. But at the same time, if companies become better and more inclusive in their decision making with everything that they’re doing and not just partially what they’re doing, that’s going to help with sustainability no matter what. From modern slavery over to scope 3, to tariff and sanctions to shipments. Think about all of that in your context and the policies are coming down for procurement not just to react, but they need to respond.”
Procurement’s future
Looking ahead, Köse is bullish about the possibilities at procurement leaders’ fingertips and believes the future will see greater tech maturity and even more use cases. “When you now think about the agentic movement, it really hits companies that have already built a more traditional database solution,” says Köse. “That doesn’t mean they don’t deliver, but a lot of them create an agentic layer into a model that was never built for an agentic layer. I believe as long as you are rebuilding something around the ability to deliver autonomous decisions with vast data models to be accurate and efficient then you are fine. But you have to be careful to look at the tech vendors which are just slapping on agentic AI and trying to fly with it because it won’t work. In 2026, I expect we will see more mature use cases and we’ll see technologies that are purposely built for utilising agentic AI and not just slapping it on.”
So, it’s clear. Procurement’s transformation isn’t finishing anytime soon. In fact, it’s just getting started.
Get busy.
Check out the article in the DPW Amsterdam Takeover Edition here.
Find out more about Köse Advisory here.