David Clear, vice president commercial sales with Symbotic, answers the basic question: Just what is artificial intelligence in the warehouse and supply chain, anyway?

When it comes to warehousing and the supply chain, the term “AI” has been “bandied about,” Clear says. But it has also delivered real results, helping businesses to deal with the increased complexity of recent years, driven by the surge in online commerce, retail SKUs and the need for systems interconnectivity.

“AI is allowing for more informed, quicker and automated decision-making,” Clear says, adding that it provides a “God’s-eye view” of an entire building and the greater network of which it’s a part. “It’s a nice additional helping hand, basically,” he says.

Within the warehouse specifically, AI is being used for making key buying decisions, understanding which products need to be moved and when, moving from a “push” to a “pull” network, and improving resource allocation.

“By being able to see and react, and make decisions in real time, AI allows the building to operate much more seamlessly,” Clear says. The technology is proving to be of particular value in combining multiple systems into a coherent whole.

AI is also being applied to the physical part of the warehouse, helping facilities to adjust to shifting demand on the fly. It’s becoming essential to the task of orchestrating multiple pieces of hardware from various vendors.

There’s plenty of room for AI to grow in warehouse and supply chain environments, Clear says. Like every new technology, it’s subject to a certain extent to the “hype cycle.” In the end, however, it offers practical applications, so that companies can function in a leaner fashion, reducing the resources and capital required to operate. And that translates into “explicit benefits on customer satisfaction and retention,” he says.