{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/buyers-and-purchasing-agents/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Buyers and Purchasing Agents",
    "soc_code": "13-1020",
    "category": "Business",
    "us_employment": 491430,
    "median_annual_wage": 77710
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 34,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": true,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 8,
    "embodiment": 5,
    "liability_shield": 2,
    "trust_premium": 8,
    "judgment_accountability": 11
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Requisition-to-PO conversion, three-bid comparisons, expediting calls, and reorder-point maintenance are already executed by Coupa/SAP Ariba workflows and RPA, which pulls the score down to 8; what holds it above the automatable band is the non-scriptable work — sitting across from a sole-source supplier during an allocation shortage, auditing a new contract manufacturer's tooling capability, or deciding whether to qualify a second source in a different country.",
    "embodiment": "A 5 reflects the occasional plant walk, trade show, supplier site audit, and receiving-dock inspection of a rejected lot — real but episodic, since the requisition queue, ERP, and the negotiation call all happen at a desk.",
    "liability_shield": "No state licenses buyers; CPSM and CPSD are resume items, not practice requirements, and the purchase order binds the employer under agency law with the company — not the agent's personal signature — answering for a bad contract, which leaves the score at 2 rather than 0 only because government buyers work under FAR/state procurement codes with audit and debarment consequences.",
    "trust_premium": "An 8 recognizes that a category manager's decade of relationships is what gets your order pulled forward during an allocation or gets a price held through a raw-material spike — but the buyer is interchangeable to the requisitioner internally, and most transactional spend is placed against a catalog or contract where the counterparty cares about the terms, not who typed them.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Make-or-buy calls, dual-sourcing decisions, and accepting a deviation on incoming material carry real dollars and schedule risk, which puts this at 11; it stops short of the top band because approval thresholds, engineering-specified specs, and management sign-off on capital and long-term agreements mean the buyer recommends and executes far more often than they unilaterally own the ambiguous call."
  },
  "rationale": "The bulk of the modal purchasing agent's day — issuing POs, comparing quotes, chasing delivery dates, maintaining vendor records, running spend and price-variance reports — is structured screen work that procurement software plus AI already handles, and e-procurement platforms have been eating this tier for two decades before LLMs arrived. What persists is supplier negotiation with real leverage, qualifying new sources under quality and geopolitical risk, resolving supply disruptions, and owning the make-or-buy and total-cost call. There is no license or signature requirement here, so nothing protects the transactional tier; the occupation consolidates into fewer, more strategic category managers.",
  "outlook": "Transactional buying roles shrink substantially as procurement platforms automate the requisition-to-PO cycle, while a smaller cohort of category managers and supplier-risk specialists gains scope and pay.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Supply-chain due-diligence law that names an accountable human signer: the EU Forced Labour Regulation and CSDDD, Germany's LkSG, and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act already require documented supplier due diligence, and UFLPA detention responses are signed attestations. If enforcement matures into a requirement that a named procurement officer personally attest to origin-tracing and forced-labour screening for each qualified supplier (as some defense DFARS 252.225 domestic-source and Section 889 telecom certifications already do at the officer level), the sign-off tier becomes non-delegable.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Government contracting rules already require a warranted contracting officer with personal certification authority (FAR 1.602); extension of certified-buyer warrant schemes into regulated private sectors — e.g. FDA/ISO 13485 medical-device supplier qualification requiring a named individual's approval signature on supplier change control, or NRC/aerospace AS9100 counterfeit-parts sign-off (AS5553)",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Genuine two-tier occupation: if PO issuance, three-bid comparison, expediting and spend reporting are fully absorbed by e-procurement autonomy, the residual role is negotiation with real leverage, new-source qualification under geopolitical risk, and make-or-buy — the ratio shifts even with no capability change. Watch headcount-per-spend ratios and title migration to 'category manager'.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Tariff, sanctions and export-control volatility (Section 301/232 actions, entity-list additions) making country-of-origin resourcing decisions consequential and contested, with the buyer owning the call that a board or customs audit later reviews",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Insurer or customer requirement for physical on-site supplier audits and first-article inspection before qualification — already standard in aerospace and medical device, would extend if counterfeit-part or forced-labour liability rises",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "No realistic route to a higher trust premium: buyers are cost centers whose counterparties are other businesses, and no purchaser of procurement services pays extra for a human doing the buying. Even with all levers, the transactional tier is unprotected and headcount consolidation proceeds regardless of what the surviving role scores."
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict",
    "outcome": "corroborated",
    "run_totals": [
      34,
      35
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "EXPOSED",
      "EXPOSED"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 413540,
        "wage": 62120
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 407410,
        "wage": 62750
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 421280,
        "wage": 64380
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 419920,
        "wage": 66690
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 439020,
        "wage": 63470
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 464880,
        "wage": 67620
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 477980,
        "wage": 71950
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 486900,
        "wage": 75650
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 491430,
        "wage": 77710
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 18.8,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}