AI Tops Enterprise Buying Priorities Yet Takes the Longest to Buy, Levelpath Research Finds

A new survey from Levelpath shows AI purchasing demands more of procurement: more stakeholders, longer decisions, and closer cost control

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Levelpath, the premier AI procurement platform, today released findings from its 2026 Are You Ready to Buy AI? procurement benchmark survey. The report, which surveyed 300 procurement and supply chain leaders at organizations actively purchasing AI software, found that AI buying is slower and more expensive than most organizations anticipated, and many are struggling to keep up.

Businesses across every industry are pushing to integrate AI into their processes. However, AI software is unlike any enterprise purchase that came before it. Usage costs can be hard to predict, and adoption is happening faster than businesses can adjust.

“The data reflects a procurement system that wasn't necessarily designed for the speed and complexity of AI buying, and organizations that don't adapt will lack control," said Stan Garber, Co-Founder and President at Levelpath. “The organizations that will be most successful in this transition will move faster, negotiate better, and build vendor relationships that actually support long-term AI strategy.”

Few Organizations Have AI Spending Under Control

For most organizations, AI spend control is an ongoing struggle. More than half of respondents (57%) have already faced a spend-related issue with an AI vendor, and only 16% say they are very or extremely confident in their ability to control AI costs. The problems businesses are facing are concrete:

• 35% say AI bills have been higher than budgeted.
• 27% say users have had to stop work because they've hit usage caps.
• 26% of organizations have pulled budget from elsewhere to cover higher AI costs.
• 9% of organizations have terminated an AI vendor due to price increases.

Despite these challenges, most buyers are not adjusting contracts to directly address the issues at hand. While 36% have shortened contract terms and 39% have added data portability clauses, fewer than one in five (16%) have pushed for cost caps.

The Procurement Process Wasn't Built for This

The report found that AI purchases take longer to complete and involve more stakeholders than standard enterprise software categories. For standard software purchases of $10K or more, the most common purchase timeframe (reported by 21% of respondents) is 7-10 weeks. By contrast, for AI, the most common purchase cycle (25% of respondents) is 16–20 weeks.

AI purchases pull more people into the decision. For standard software purchases, 43% of buyers involve seven or more people. For AI, that climbs to 58%, and 28% involve 11 or more. Each added reviewer is another checkpoint where a purchase can stall:

• 58% of buyers cite security reviews as a top cause of delay.
• 57% say vendor evaluations delay or derail purchases.
• 52% cite contract negotiations as a cause of delay.

When deals stall, vendors are often left in the dark. Only slightly more than half of organizations (54%) proactively update vendors during a delay.

Autonomous Procurement Is Closer Than It Appears

The survey also explored enterprise attitudes toward autonomous procurement and found that there is willingness to hand purchasing decisions to AI. Only 15% say they would never allow an AI agent to complete a purchase, and another 10% cite legal or regulatory constraints. Roughly 40% are already open to some level of AI autonomy today:

• 20% of buyers would allow an AI agent to execute transactions under $10,000 with appropriate controls in place.
• 14% of buyers would allow an AI agent to execute purchases under $1,000.
• 6% of buyers would allow an AI agent to make any purchase within pre-approved budget parameters.

Procurement Built for What Comes Next

Levelpath is built for the shift to autonomous procurement. Customers hand administrative work to embedded AI Agents across intake, sourcing, contracting, and risk management while humans stay in control of the decisions that need judgement. The survey results point to the foundation that autonomous purchasing will require: complete visibility into every purchase, supplier, and contract. Organizations that establish that visibility now will be the ones ready to delegate more when their comfort level catches up with the technology.

Survey Methodology

Levelpath surveyed 300 procurement and supply chain decision-makers at U.S. enterprise companies in June 2026.

About Levelpath

Levelpath is the AI procurement platform that delivers serious impact. Powered by its proprietary reasoning engine, Levelpath automates administrative work and provides unprecedented clarity at every step from intake and sourcing to contracting and payment. Procurement teams can focus on unlocking maximum value from supplier relationships, while IT, finance, and legal gain a complete view of spend and risk. Levelpath’s embedded AI Agents, underpinned by the industry’s first supplier graph, deliver contextually relevant and genuinely helpful answers, uncover valuable opportunities, and reliably handle tasks to high standards, dramatically increasing team productivity. Global brands, including Ace Hardware, Amgen, Coupang, Fortrea, GATX, SSM Health, Toray Industries, and Western Union, trust Levelpath’s deep procurement expertise to transform their purchasing and drive value from their supplier relationships.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Levelpath is backed by Battery, Benchmark, Redpoint Ventures, Menlo Ventures, NewView Capital, and World Innovation Lab. Learn more at levelpath.com or connect with us on LinkedIn.