A minor decline in total logistics spending in the U.S. in 2025 (1%) masks a turbulent year for the logistics industry, marked by dizzying changes in trade policy, along with other factors all too familiar to industry executives.

“Last year’s supply chain looks different than today’s supply chain,” said Mark Baxa, president and CEO of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP). “I surmise that next year’s logistics network will be hardly recognizable.” 

The CSCMP released its annual State of Logistics Report, titled “Forged in Disruption,” on June 16 during a press briefing at the Empire State Building in New York City.  

Korhan Acar, Kearney partner and lead author of the report, pointed to the previous year's report title — “Navigating Through the Fog” —  which described an industry seeking greater visibility while recognizing that standing still posed the greatest risk. “Today,” he warned, “the fog has become an operating environment.”

Geopolitical uncertainty, trade realignment, energy volatility, inflationary pressures and rapid technological change have combined to create a “new era of persistent disruption,” said Acar. “CSOs and CEOs now are being asked to support profitable growth while navigating this disruption. As a result, their strategic importance continues to increase, placing more supply chain and operations leaders on the path to the CEO role.”

The publication is authored annually by global consulting firm Kearney and presented by Penske Logistics, a supply chain solutions provider. 

The report continued to emphasize the importance of logistic to the U.S. economy, coming in at $2.4 trillion, or 7.8% of the national GDP in 2025. For 2024, those numbers were $2.6 trillion and 8.7% of GDP.  

Big-picture challenges were asymmetrical global growth; tightening financial conditions due to persistent inflation and rising public debt; accelerating trade flow and geoeconomic realignment; labor market and productivity constraints; and energy price volatility. 

All this has “required adaptation, not just reworking of networks, but adoption of technologies to deal with the challenges of very short-term disruptions and changes in direction, both up and down supply chains,” said Rob Haddock, transportation advisor at Albedo Logistics Solutions, and board chair for CSCMP.

Meanwhile, implementation of artificial Intelligence by shippers and logistics providers across the supply chain remains uneven, the report found, despite delivering measurable ROI in specific, well-defined applications. The authors identified a large gap between companies that have placed AI into core workflows vs. those still restricted to isolated point solutions, with many having none at all.

The report identified four functions where AI delivers the most value: interpreting, predicting, recommending and executing. It also pointed to a growth in AI-enabled automation, partly in response to labor constraints.

“We’ve reached a genuine turning point in the autonomous era,” said Acar. “AI, robotics, and autonomous trucking are moving rapidly from pilots to scaled deployment. Against this backdrop, profitable growth has become the defining priority. The companies that will lead are those combining resilience, intelligent logistics, and disciplined execution to protect margins and outperform in an increasingly volatile world."

What to do to thrive in spite of the ongoing disruptions? Redesign the operating model, not just the network, the authors concluded. “The winning organizations will be those that build the organizational muscle, not just the technology stack, to sense, decide and act continuously,” they said. “Competitive advantage will no longer come from designing the most optimized network, but from operating the most adaptable one.”