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Procurement leaders register high levels of concern and widening cyber risk as fragile global supply webs come under sustained pressure from Iran, the wider Middle East and the war in Ukraine.

How vulnerable all organisations are. There are so many different factors that are impacting supplier risk. There are direct ones where supply chains involve physically transporting goods through the Strait. That traffic is disrupted, or they have to add 15 days to go around the Cape of Good Hope, so the cost of shipping has gone up.

How vulnerable all organisations are. There are so many different factors that are impacting supplier risk. There are direct ones where supply chains involve physically transporting goods through the Strait. That traffic is disrupted, or they have to add 15 days to go around the Cape of Good Hope, so the cost of shipping has gone up.

AI promises to upend the way we do practically everything: coding, decision-making, logistics, even art and poetry. And when ChatGPT exploded onto the scene several years ago, intriguing uses quickly emerged. But recently, cautious investors have warned of the AI bubble bursting, worried about a gap between enormous CapEx spending and delivering value. The question lingers: is AI a technological curio wrapped up in its own hype – or is it bringing real-world business impact?

Artificial intelligence is maturing so fast that it can be hard to keep up. But forward-looking procurement teams are using the frontier tech to crunch massive amounts of data, automate risk, manage compliance and gain visibility over their supply chains. With continuously working AI agents promising to significantly cut time and resource spend, the benefits may soon be too numerous to ignore.

Takeaways from a CIPS facilitated webinar on 21 April 2026 explored new resilience strategies for the profession in response to the Middle East crisis. A key takeaway? Sustainable procurement is increasingly being reframed as a core resilience strategy.