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Toi Matthews, Associate Vice President for Administration and Procurement Director at the University of the Virgin Islands, shares her excitement about how AI can empower procurement teams โ especially smaller ones operating across multiple campuses.
With responsibility across St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John, Toi has seen both ends of the procurement spectrum in her 26-year career โ from large, robust departments to being the sole procurement professional.
Although new to AI, she has already explored tools like ChatGPT, and attending Horizon opened her eyes to how AI can directly support procurement functions. She highlights several areas where intelligent tools could create immediate impact for her team, including automated purchase requisitions, smarter sourcing and bid analysis, and intelligent vendor and contract management.
For Toi, the promise of AI is clear: it can help a small team do more, work faster, and operate with greater accuracy โ ultimately enabling the university to be more efficient and deliver better outcomes for its students and staff.
You will learn:
- How AI can support procurement teams with limited staff
- Real scenarios where automation can eliminate manual tasks
- Why universities and public institutions should explore AI now
- How sourcing, bid analysis, and vendor management can be transformed
- What AI adoption looks like for someone early in their learning journey
This interview offers a relatable, grounded perspective for any procurement leader wondering how AI can make a tangible difference in resource-constrained environments.
