All occupations › Business & financialCan AI Replace Purchasing Agents, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products in 2026? High exposure. AI could handle about 73% of today's purchasing agents, except wholesale, retail, and farm products tasks by 2036, and there is a 57% chance the number of jobs falls by a fifth or more. AI is likely to take over many tasks outright.
See how not to be replaced
Timeline Year 2030 Chance of 20%+ fewer jobs
19% 2030 · 57% 2036
One person could cover, 2036
2.7 roles
0% 50% 100% 2026 2028 2030 2032 2034 2036 2026: 17% 2027: 19% 2028: 23% 2029: 29% 2030: 36% 2031: 45% 2032: 53% 2033: 61% 2034: 66% 2035: 70% 2036: 73% 36% Share of today's tasks AI can perform 40 80 120 2026 2028 2030 2032 2034 2036 2026: 99 2027: 98 2028: 97 2029: 95 2030: 92 2031: 89 2032: 85 2033: 82 2034: 80 2035: 79 2036: 78 92 Headcount index, 2025 = 100 (dashed line) Your survival map Not every part of your job is at the same risk. Tap a number to see what to do about each task.
You 1 2 3 4 5 6
Tap a number on the map or a task below.
1 Hire, train, or supervise purchasing clerks, buyers, and expediters. 2 Attend meetings, trade shows, conferences, conventions, and seminars to network with people in other purchasing departments. 3 Prepare purchase orders, solicit bid proposals, and review requisitions for goods and services. 4 Purchase the highest quality merchandise at the lowest possible price and in correct amounts. 5 Analyze price proposals, financial reports, and other data and information to determine reasonable prices. 6 Write and review product specifications, maintaining a working technical knowledge of the goods or services to be purchased. Lower-risk jobs that use similar skills Your plan Ticks are saved in this browser only.
Try an AI tool on one task you'd normally do by hand: "Write and review product specifications, maintaining a working technical knowledge of the goods or services to be purchased". Learn one AI tool well enough to show it in an interview, for: "Prepare purchase orders, solicit bid proposals, and review requisitions for goods and services". Get visibly better at your human core: "Hire, train, or supervise purchasing clerks, buyers, and expediters". Rewrite the top of your CV around judgment, people and decisions, not routine output. Read about a lower-risk move: First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers. Lower-risk jobs with similar tasks Based on 19 O*NET tasks for "Purchasing Agents, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products" (SOC 13-1023.00). LLM alone: 5% of tasks; with AI tools: 90%. Projections are a model, not official statistics. How we calculate this · Data version 2026-10
