Director – Procurement AI Innovation & Emerging Technology

Key Responsibilities 

AI Technology Exploration 

• Continuously evaluate emerging AI technologies, platforms, models, and tools. 
• Maintain awareness of external AI market developments and vendor offerings. 
• Assess applicability of new AI technologies to Procurement business problems. 
• Run technology comparisons and proof-of-value assessments. 

Rapid Prototyping & Development 

• Develop prototypes using Copilot Studio, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Azure AI Services, Power Platform, Python, APIs, and multi-agent frameworks. 
• Build reusable AI accelerators and automation components. 
• Test orchestration scenarios involving multiple agents and systems. 

Procurement Use Case Discovery 

• Partner with Procurement teams and other AZ functions to identify AI opportunities. 
• Translate business challenges into AI experiments. 
• Conduct feasibility assessments. 
• Prioritize ideas based on impact and implementation complexity. 

AI Performance & Quality Testing 

• Evaluate AI accuracy, consistency, reliability, and risk. 
• Design testing methodologies for AI solutions. 
• Establish prompt engineering and evaluation standards. 
• Measure model performance and business effectiveness. 

Vendor & Technology Strategy 

• Support build-versus-buy decisions.  
• Evaluate AI solutions.  
• Conduct market scans and capability assessments. 

 Knowledge Development 

• Create reusable prompting frameworks. 
• Publish technical guidance and best practices. 
• Share lessons learned across Procurement. 

Required Skills 

• Advanced AI fluency, including generative AI, agentic AI, large language models, prompt engineering, model evaluation, and AI quality testing. 
• Hands-on prototyping capability using Copilot Studio, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Power Platform, Azure AI Services, Python, APIs, and automation frameworks. 
• Strong experimentation mindset, with the ability to convert ambiguous procurement problems into testable AI hypotheses, prototypes, and proof-of-value assessments. 
• Emerging technology scouting and market-sensing skills to identify relevant AI tools, vendor capabilities, and external innovation trends. 
• Data fluency, including the ability to assess data readiness, interpret AI-generated insights, validate outputs, and identify quality or bias risks. 
• Procurement domain knowledge across sourcing, contracting, negotiation, supplier management, compliance, analytics, and category strategy. 
• Ability to evaluate build-versus-buy options, technical feasibility, business impact, implementation complexity, and enterprise scalability. 
• Strong communication and storytelling skills to explain AI opportunities, limitations, risks, and value potential to senior Procurement, IT, and business stakeholders.