There is much excitement about the disruption that AI is likely to bring to traditional business workflows. This applies especially to supply chains, the interconnected systems that provide us with everything from daily staples to luxury goods. The move to AI is likely to present opportunities for improvement in areas from inventory planning and management to manufacturing, production and delivery.
So far, AI agents’ contribution to supply chain operations has been limited, and for companies not already on a path to digitalisation it can offer no shortcuts. While digitalisation adds value through algorithms, machine learning and data management, such tools have been around for years. In many cases, these are instruments that have been rebadged to tap into the current frenzy.
Many of the services marketed as agents are “base-level programs” that have existed for a while, says ManMohan Sodhi, a professor of supply chain management at Bayes Business School, London. “The heavy lifting is being done by the mathematical models already in use.”