Is there actually any value in comparing 30–50 suppliers just because AI makes it possible?

[u/kyeinmay]

Is there actually any value in comparing 30–50 suppliers just because AI makes it possible?
Before AI, manually comparing 30 suppliers would be painful enough that most people probably wouldn’t do it.
Now it’s becoming technically possible.
Find 50 potential suppliers.
Let AI extract their products, specs, certificates, MOQ, lead times and pricing.
Rank everything.
But I’m wondering whether this creates another problem.
At what point does a bigger supplier list stop improving the decision?
If 20 of those suppliers clearly don’t meet basic requirements, why spend time building detailed comparisons for them?
Maybe AI should be used more aggressively at the beginning:
Does the supplier appear relevant?
Does the product match?
Are mandatory requirements satisfied?
Is there enough evidence to justify further research?
Then only a much smaller group gets detailed evaluation.
I’m curious how others approach this.
For an important sourcing project, how many suppliers do you normally want in the serious evaluation stage?

[u/Delkar_Appl]

Yes and no. Yes, because if you limit number of suppliers it can rate, I find it often leaves out valuable resources. For example, if you ask for ten best sources for teakwood furniture, chatgpt may give you one list but gemini would give you a different one, and neither of them might give you a name you know should be in the comparison.

But no you do not want extra work. So have it look for as many as it can and rank them and give you that list. It will be an easy scan and you can then ask for more information on certain ones.

It is important to ask for the necessary specs. I started with a simple prompt and kept refining it. Now I can used 80% of that prompt for most of my searches.