Adrian Button on AI in procurement
From Masayoshi Son, Adrian Button & John Thornton on AI-Driven Synergy in 21st Century Manufacturing · · FIIInstitute
“We're using AI to generate contracts that used to take eight hours — now we can do them in one hour. We can invest all of that resource in being more strategic than being tactical.”
On , Adrian Button, Former Senior Vice President of Operations at Carrier Global Corp, spoke about AI in procurement during Masayoshi Son, Adrian Button & John Thornton on AI-Driven Synergy in 21st Century Manufacturing on FIIInstitute.
About Adrian Button
Adrian Button, former Senior Vice President of Operations at Carrier Global, spoke at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh on October 29, 2024, as part of a panel on advanced manufacturing and AI. He described Carrier’s use of AI across four pillars of operations: planning, sourcing, making, and servicing. Button stated that AI-driven demand sensing helps position products by analyzing weather patterns and buying behaviors, and that predictive analytics are used to anticipate supply chain disruptions such as port congestion. He also noted that AI has reduced the time needed to generate contracts from eight hours to one hour, and that he finds it difficult not to invest resources in AI-related projects. Button identified two areas of high demand for product innovation and sustainability: data centers, where Carrier’s technology improves efficiency for cooling chips, and residential HVAC systems, where integrating batteries can reduce grid load. He praised the Alat team for simplifying processes and accelerating decision-making. In a separate 2022 appearance at the Marxism 2022 festival, a speaker named Adrian Budd—a lecturer in international relations—gave a talk titled “Is China a new global superpower?” in which he argued that China is not yet a superpower and discussed inter-imperialist rivalry and the role of the Chinese working class.