Job Check
Purchasing Managers
Plan, direct, or coordinate the activities of buyers, purchasing officers, and related workers involved in purchasing materials, products, and services. Includes wholesale or retail trade merchandising managers and procurement managers.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Develop and implement purchasing and contract management instructions, policies, and procedures.AI could speed this up a lot
- 02Locate vendors of materials, equipment or supplies, and interview them to determine product availability and terms of sales.People already use AI for this at work
- 03Prepare bid awards requiring board approval.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Direct and coordinate activities of personnel engaged in buying, selling, and distributing materials, equipment, machinery, and supplies.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 05Review purchase order claims and contracts for conformance to company policy.AI could speed this up a lot
- 06Review, evaluate, and approve specifications for issuing and awarding bids.People already use AI for this at work
- 07Administer online purchasing systems.People already use AI for this at work
- 08Prepare and process requisitions and purchase orders for supplies and equipment.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Interview and hire staff, and oversee staff training.Mostly human for now
- 10Develop cost reduction strategies and savings plans.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job loss20%of this job’s work time goes to tasks that people already do with Claude at work, counting tasks where AI only helps as half (2026).Anthropic, 2026
59%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 32% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Interview and hire staff, and oversee staff training.