In this episode, Megha Singh, Director of Procurement Transformation at Micron Technology, cuts through the AI hype to share what actually works when you’re trying to deploy AI in procurement.
With two decades of experience across Novartis, Walmart, and now Micron, where she leads initiatives impacting over $2 billion in unmanaged spend, Megha brings a practitioner’s view on moving from “what is AI?” to “how do I actually make this work?”
Fresh from the Gartner Symposium in Florida, Megha shares a key observation: everyone’s asking the same question now, not whether to use AI, but how to deploy it without breaking what already works.
She’s refreshingly honest about the messy reality most companies face: fragmented processes across regions, vendor master data that’s constantly changing, and teams that are excited about AI but terrified of what it means for their jobs.
Megha talks about the three big killers that stop AI implementations dead:
- data quality (especially that nightmare vendor master data),
- fragmented processes (Excel in one region, SAP in another, good luck training that AI model), and
- mindset.
That last one’s huge.
Too many leaders think AI is like flipping a switch when it’s actually like onboarding a new teammate who needs training, tweaking, and constant improvement.
The conversation dives into practical use cases you can start with tomorrow.
What stands out is her five-point vendor evaluation checklist when you’re picking an AI partner.
Megha’s big philosophy? AI + HI (human intelligence) creates wonders. AI flags decisions, humans make them. When a supplier gets flagged for geopolitical risk, you still need your category manager’s judgment on the nuances.
Looking ahead, she sees procurement shifting from transactional to predictive over the next 3-5 years, with AI agents handling the grunt work 24/7 while procurement pros come in each morning to decisions ready on their desk, not drowning in manual processes.
Her advice for leaders just getting started? Start small, solve something real, show value fast, and don’t wait for perfect data or some grand strategy.
Find your internal champions, the enthusiastic IT or ops folks who get excited about this stuff, because a fearful team will kill your AI project faster than bad data ever will.
Watch the full episode to hear Megha’s war stories from implementing AI solutions across different organisations.
If you’re serious about using AI in procurement the right way, this episode is a great place to start.
