The latest artificial intelligence technology is paving the way for "autonomous" supply chains, says EJ Tavella, executive vice president of integrated business applications with Anaplan.

Used in connection with AI, the word “autonomous” can be tough to define. “I don’t think everybody understands what it means,” says Tavella. He offers his own definition: “The convergence of a long history of analytics in supply chain, married with the huge market buzz around AI and GenAI.” It’s all about the ability to take traditional analytics, statistics and mathematical modeling and link them to the capabilities of modern-day AI.

Use cases are proliferating. Tavella cites the example of a large semiconductor manufacturer that needs to understand the constraint around tariffs, and be able to model the tradeoffs involved in sourcing decisions. Instead of having to set up specific scenarios with all of the relevant details, human planners can simply ask GenAI to generate multiple “what-if” scenarios, drawing on both internal and external data, then choose the one that’s most likely to succeed.

The AI model makes that decision based on past events that a company has experienced, but it must also deal with situations that haven’t occurred before, Tavella says. Its ability to do that “will remain to be seen,” he says, “but so far, I’ve been super-impressed with GenAI’s ability to navigate new information and take feedback.”

The ultimate goal of AI in planning is to allow the model to go beyond recommendations to making decisions with the need for human intervention. Tavella believes that capability already exists “in small cases,” where GenAI can take independent action within parameters defined by the company. At that point, “we can just let it run.”

AI is also improving in its ability to deal with exceptions. Tavella likens the technology’s rapid progress to the transition from a human-powered mountain bike to a jet aircraft guided by automated pilot. “It’s going to get there before the business users are comfortable with letting it get there,” he says.