AutoGenAI Search
Helping procurement teams find answers faster with GenAI-powered search.
Duration
2 months
Industry
Automotive · Generative AI
cross-functional team
Client team, 2 Consultants, 2 Software Engineers and Senior Leadership
ROLE
Research, Product Design, Design Systems, Testing
You have five offers on your desk, but which one is the best?
Procurement in the automotive sector is complex. Supplier data is spread across systems and formats. Managers must compare thousands of parts, under constant pressure to cut costs and strengthen supply chain resilience.
AutoGenAI Search streamlines procurement workflows with natural-language prompts: structuring data, enabling comparisons, and guiding smarter decisions.
PROBLEM
Through workshops and early conversations, two critical challenges emerged:
Manual and slow workflows. Procurement managers described spending “half a day just to line up data in Excel before I can even make a decision.”
No holistic view. Teams could not easily balance cost, lead time, and risk. Each view was partial and inconsistent.
The client needed scalable solution to orchestrate multiple workflows, starting with supplier quotes.
DESIGN PROCESS AND TRADE-OFFS
Discovery
Partnered with consultants and client stakeholders to map workflows and identify pain points.
"How might we give procurement teams clarity and control across workflows by asking questions in plain language?"
Iteration
Facilitated feedback sessions with stakeholders, gathering insights.
Incorporated feedback into refined prototypes.
Extended the client’s design system with custom components. This required negotiating compliance while ensuring the system could support procurement complexity at scale.
Collaboration
Facilitated alignment between stakeholders, consultants, data scientists, and developers.
Negotiated trade-offs: chose a hybrid design (structured comparisons + natural prompts) over a chatbot to ensure transparency and trust.
Engaged leadership with prototypes to accelerate approvals and build confidence.
Impact
Scaled from 1 pilot to full client engagement based on the strength of the design proposal.
Delivered 4 AI-powered procurement apps in 2 months.
Earned positive feedback from clients, consultants, and senior leadership.
Procurement workflows cut from hours to minutes (e.g. supplier quote comparisons).
Positioned the client for industry-level benefits:
8–12% cost reduction.
Up to 50% faster sourcing cycles. [BCG benchmarks]
Reflection and future opportunities
Iterative collaboration was key. By involving stakeholders in rapid loops, we delivered quickly while keeping alignment strong.
Designing within constraints required creativity. The design system was efficient but restrictive; bending it strategically allowed us to deliver usability without losing compliance.
System-level design was the real win. Supplier quotes were one workflow, but the greater achievement was designing a framework flexible enough to support multiple procurement processes.
Future opportunities
Expanding the solution to cover more procurement workflows.
Enhancing conversational AI for smoother, more flexible interactions across use cases.
Interested in continuing the conversation?
Please feel free to reach out.