AI Procurement Isn’t Project Management — Here’s the Framework Most Teams Miss

If your company is buying AI, you need an AI procurement process—not just project management.

Too often, teams treat AI buying like any SaaS purchase or IT project. That’s a massive mistake.

What’s different about AI procurement?

With AI, the stakes are higher:

• Black box outcomes mean you can’t always explain why a vendor’s tool works (or fails).
• Data privacy and model biases can create compliance and risk headaches.
• Rapidly changing state-of-the-art: The tech you buy today may look outdated in 18 months.

The framework most teams miss

Every AI procurement should consider:

• Validation: Has the vendor proven their model on YOUR data and use case?
• Interpretability: Can the vendor explain how their model makes decisions, and can you audit those?
• Resilience: How does the vendor keep pace with model drift and AI advances?
• Risk: What guardrails—privacy, legal, ethical—are in place and how are they managed?

Project management is important—but just monitoring deliverables and timelines isn’t enough with AI. You need a layered procurement framework built for uncertainty, not just a spec sheet with milestones.

Rethink your process before buying your next model or tool. Your future self (and your compliance lead) will thank you.

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