A colleague recently asked me: “Are the CPOs listening to your points?”
The honest answer: yes — but not uniformly.
When I published my “Stop training practitioners on tools and start training them on governance” post, the post’s demographics told a striking story. The top five cities engaging with the content were Bengaluru, London, Zürich, Munich, and New York.
Four of the five were outside North America — and New York, at 1.9%, was half the engagement of the leader.
That pattern prompted a deeper question: Is there a regional divergence in how procurement leaders are approaching AI adoption?
The data says yes — and the implications are significant.
The Global AI Adoption Landscape
According to recent research from Stanford HAI, McKinsey, Forrester, and multiple CPO surveys, AI adoption rates vary dramatically by region:
Region
Enterprise AI Adoption
Characteristic Approach
China
58%
Aggressive, government-driven
India
57%
Rapid growth, cost-optimization focus
United States
25-62%*
High investment, speed-first
Germany
47%
Methodical, manufacturing-focused
Denmark/Nordics
28%
Innovation on existing models
Spain
31%
Moderate, regulatory-aware
Italy
13%
Cautious, governance-heavy
*US figures vary by measurement methodology — 25% national adoption rate vs. 62% enterprise adoption.
A Note on Methodology
The figures in this analysis are synthetic indices drawn from multiple sources — Stanford HAI, McKinsey, Forrester, Oxford Insights, and various CPO surveys from 2024-2025. They represent macro tendencies, not procurement-specific measurements.
Individual organizations within any region may vary significantly. A US company can have exemplary governance. A German company can rush into AI with weak readiness.
The pattern is directional, not deterministic — useful for understanding institutional culture, not for predicting any single organization’s behavior.
The Optimism Gap
Stanford’s 2025 AI Index reveals something even more telling: AI optimism varies dramatically by country.
Country
% Who See AI as Beneficial
China
83%
Indonesia
80%
Thailand
77%
United States
39%
Canada
40%
Netherlands
36%
The countries with the highest adoption rates are also the most optimistic. The countries with more skepticism are adopting more cautiously.
But here’s the question no one is asking: Who’s getting it right?
The Governance Readiness Gap
APAC firms are investing more aggressively — 26% spend $400,000-$500,000 on AI annually, compared to 19% in North America and just 17% in Europe.
But investment isn’t the same as readiness.
According to BCG’s 2025 research, 60% of companies globally are not generating any material value from AI despite substantial investment. The problem isn’t technology adoption — it’s organizational readiness to govern what they’ve adopted.
The Fairmarkit 2025 GenAI in Procurement Index found a “major disconnect between executive mandates for AI adoption and actual progress within procurement teams, due to cultural resistance, governance hurdles, and data trust issues.”
Sound familiar?
Most governance indices measure regulation, compliance, and policy frameworks. But Phase 0™ measures something deeper: decision rights, escalation paths, verification protocols, accountability structures, and human judgment readiness.
By that measure, the gap between adoption and governance is likely even larger than the macro data suggests.
The Pause Pattern
Some regions are moving fast. Others are pausing. Here’s what distinguishes them:
Regions Racing Ahead:
Region
Why They’re Moving Fast
United States
“Move fast” culture, $109B private AI investment in 2024
Most skeptical population in Europe (36% optimism)
Italy
Heavy regulatory environment, only 13% adoption
What the Cautious Regions Know
The regions showing the most caution share common characteristics:
Stronger governance cultures — GDPR, EU AI Act, regulatory maturity
Lower tolerance for “move fast and break things” — Precision over speed
History of methodical adoption — Germany’s manufacturing sector doesn’t experiment recklessly
Skepticism as a feature, not a bug — Questioning AI hype isn’t resistance; it’s due diligence
The Nordics are particularly instructive. As the European Centre for International Political Economy notes, these countries “realized they cannot compete on scale, so rather than create their own AI models, their focus has been to innovate using existing ones.”
They’re not racing to adopt AI. They’re racing to govern it.
The 80% Failure Rate Connection
Here’s what connects all of this to the persistent 80% implementation failure rate:
The regions moving fastest are the regions with:
The highest investment
The lowest governance readiness
The greatest gap between adoption and value creation
The regions moving more cautiously are the regions with:
Stronger governance frameworks
Higher organizational readiness
Better alignment between adoption and outcomes
Speed without governance isn’t leadership. It’s liability.
Why My Post Resonated in Europe
When the post’s analysis landed heavily in Munich, London, Zürich, and Paris — and not in New York, San Francisco, or Chicago — it wasn’t random.
Those are markets where:
The governance message doesn’t sound like “slow down”
Regulatory culture has trained leaders to ask accountability questions
The “move fast” narrative hasn’t drowned out the “move ready” imperative
The CPO Divide isn’t about who’s advanced and who’s behind. It’s about who’s asking the right questions before deployment — and who’s asking them after.
The Power of the Pause
In an era of AI acceleration, pausing feels counterintuitive. But the data suggests something important:
The most skeptical regions may be the smartest.
Not because they’re resistant to technology — but because they’re resistant to adopting technology without governance.
The question isn’t whether to adopt AI. It’s whether your organization is ready to govern what it adopts.
That readiness doesn’t emerge from the technology. It has to be designed — before deployment, not after.
The Bottom Line
When someone asks, “Are the CPOs listening?” — the answer depends on where they sit.
CPOs in governance-first cultures hear the message clearly. They’re already asking: Who’s accountable? What are the decision rights? How do we verify outputs?
CPOs in speed-first cultures often hear “slow down” — and dismiss it as resistance to progress.
But the 80% failure rate doesn’t discriminate by geography. It follows the pattern: adoption without governance leads to failure, regardless of how fast you moved.
The CPO Divide isn’t ultimately about geography. It’s about mindset — equation-based thinking (“the model says do X”) versus agent-based thinking (“can we govern doing X?”). Any organization, in any region, can fall into the Torrent Trap. Geography is a proxy for institutional culture, not a boundary.
The regions pausing to ask governance questions aren’t behind. They’re ahead.
They just don’t know it yet.
Jon Hansen is the creator of The Hansen Method® and founder of Hansen Models™, helping organizations prevent the 80% implementation failure rate through Phase 0™ readiness assessment.
Procurement Insights
The CPO Divide: Why Some Markets Hear “Governance” and Others Hear “Slow Down”
Posted on January 27, 2026
0
By Jon W. Hansen | Procurement Insights
A colleague recently asked me: “Are the CPOs listening to your points?”
The honest answer: yes — but not uniformly.
When I published my “Stop training practitioners on tools and start training them on governance” post, the post’s demographics told a striking story. The top five cities engaging with the content were Bengaluru, London, Zürich, Munich, and New York.
Four of the five were outside North America — and New York, at 1.9%, was half the engagement of the leader.
That pattern prompted a deeper question: Is there a regional divergence in how procurement leaders are approaching AI adoption?
The data says yes — and the implications are significant.
The Global AI Adoption Landscape
According to recent research from Stanford HAI, McKinsey, Forrester, and multiple CPO surveys, AI adoption rates vary dramatically by region:
*US figures vary by measurement methodology — 25% national adoption rate vs. 62% enterprise adoption.
A Note on Methodology
The figures in this analysis are synthetic indices drawn from multiple sources — Stanford HAI, McKinsey, Forrester, Oxford Insights, and various CPO surveys from 2024-2025. They represent macro tendencies, not procurement-specific measurements.
Individual organizations within any region may vary significantly. A US company can have exemplary governance. A German company can rush into AI with weak readiness.
The pattern is directional, not deterministic — useful for understanding institutional culture, not for predicting any single organization’s behavior.
The Optimism Gap
Stanford’s 2025 AI Index reveals something even more telling: AI optimism varies dramatically by country.
The countries with the highest adoption rates are also the most optimistic. The countries with more skepticism are adopting more cautiously.
But here’s the question no one is asking: Who’s getting it right?
The Governance Readiness Gap
APAC firms are investing more aggressively — 26% spend $400,000-$500,000 on AI annually, compared to 19% in North America and just 17% in Europe.
But investment isn’t the same as readiness.
According to BCG’s 2025 research, 60% of companies globally are not generating any material value from AI despite substantial investment. The problem isn’t technology adoption — it’s organizational readiness to govern what they’ve adopted.
The Fairmarkit 2025 GenAI in Procurement Index found a “major disconnect between executive mandates for AI adoption and actual progress within procurement teams, due to cultural resistance, governance hurdles, and data trust issues.”
Sound familiar?
Most governance indices measure regulation, compliance, and policy frameworks. But Phase 0™ measures something deeper: decision rights, escalation paths, verification protocols, accountability structures, and human judgment readiness.
By that measure, the gap between adoption and governance is likely even larger than the macro data suggests.
The Pause Pattern
Some regions are moving fast. Others are pausing. Here’s what distinguishes them:
Regions Racing Ahead:
Regions Pausing:
What the Cautious Regions Know
The regions showing the most caution share common characteristics:
The Nordics are particularly instructive. As the European Centre for International Political Economy notes, these countries “realized they cannot compete on scale, so rather than create their own AI models, their focus has been to innovate using existing ones.”
They’re not racing to adopt AI. They’re racing to govern it.
The 80% Failure Rate Connection
Here’s what connects all of this to the persistent 80% implementation failure rate:
The regions moving fastest are the regions with:
The regions moving more cautiously are the regions with:
Speed without governance isn’t leadership. It’s liability.
Why My Post Resonated in Europe
When the post’s analysis landed heavily in Munich, London, Zürich, and Paris — and not in New York, San Francisco, or Chicago — it wasn’t random.
Those are markets where:
The CPO Divide isn’t about who’s advanced and who’s behind. It’s about who’s asking the right questions before deployment — and who’s asking them after.
The Power of the Pause
In an era of AI acceleration, pausing feels counterintuitive. But the data suggests something important:
The most skeptical regions may be the smartest.
Not because they’re resistant to technology — but because they’re resistant to adopting technology without governance.
The question isn’t whether to adopt AI. It’s whether your organization is ready to govern what it adopts.
That readiness doesn’t emerge from the technology. It has to be designed — before deployment, not after.
The Bottom Line
When someone asks, “Are the CPOs listening?” — the answer depends on where they sit.
CPOs in governance-first cultures hear the message clearly. They’re already asking: Who’s accountable? What are the decision rights? How do we verify outputs?
CPOs in speed-first cultures often hear “slow down” — and dismiss it as resistance to progress.
But the 80% failure rate doesn’t discriminate by geography. It follows the pattern: adoption without governance leads to failure, regardless of how fast you moved.
The CPO Divide isn’t ultimately about geography. It’s about mindset — equation-based thinking (“the model says do X”) versus agent-based thinking (“can we govern doing X?”). Any organization, in any region, can fall into the Torrent Trap. Geography is a proxy for institutional culture, not a boundary.
The regions pausing to ask governance questions aren’t behind. They’re ahead.
They just don’t know it yet.
Jon Hansen is the creator of The Hansen Method® and founder of Hansen Models™, helping organizations prevent the 80% implementation failure rate through Phase 0™ readiness assessment.
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