Hold the ceiling at A2 for category strategy. Agents author the category strategy including the should-cost model. Committing the company to a supply base architecture is ratified by a sourcing council. Raise it only after two consecutive quarters where the override rate stays under five percent and every override has a written cause.

Keep the repeatable category plan volume in the spine and pull the exception tail back into the function. The spine is cheaper per unit; the tail is where the context that prevents rework actually sits.

Redesign the lane around exception density rather than volume. Volume is already absorbed; the cost that remains is concentrated in a small share of category plan cases that no current agent resolves without a human.

Hold the ceiling at A4 for spend analytics. The highest-autonomy sub-function in Procurement. Classification and detection are deterministic, reversible and improve with volume. Raise it only after two consecutive quarters where the override rate stays under five percent and every override has a written cause.

Hold the ceiling at A3 for sourcing & rfx. Authoring, issuing and normalizing bids run without a human. Award is always a human decision because it creates a commercial relationship and a legal commitment. Raise it only after two consecutive quarters where the override rate stays under five percent and every override has a written cause.

Hold the ceiling at A2 for negotiation & award. Agents build the negotiation position including a modeled view of the supplier side. The walk-away point and the award are human commitments. Raise it only after two consecutive quarters where the override rate stays under five percent and every override has a written cause.

Agents in this lane may act without a human when the category plan sits inside the stated value, risk and confidence envelope. Outside it, the unit holds at a gate with a named approver and a running clock.

Every autonomous decision writes inputs, the rule version applied, the model and prompt version, the output and a reversal path. An action with no evidence record is treated as a control failure, not a fast decision.

Agents in this lane may act without a human when the spend line sits inside the stated value, risk and confidence envelope. Outside it, the unit holds at a gate with a named approver and a running clock.

Every autonomous decision writes inputs, the rule version applied, the model and prompt version, the output and a reversal path. An action with no evidence record is treated as a control failure, not a fast decision.

Escalation is mandatory when confidence falls below the floor, when two options sit inside the confidence band, or when a break condition on a ratified position fires. Director, Procurement Analytics owns the response clock.

Agents in this lane may act without a human when the sourcing event sits inside the stated value, risk and confidence envelope. Outside it, the unit holds at a gate with a named approver and a running clock.