At what point does "AI" move from being a buzzword to something of demonstrated value to warehouses? Shri Hariharan, senior vice president of global solutions with Blue Yonder, shares his view.

Much of the progress in artificial intelligence over the past decade or more has been in the area of predictive AI, supported by sophisticated algorithms and applications in the cloud.

“The use cases were always there,” says Hariharan, noting that retailers, manufacturers and consumer brands used the technology to anticipate orders and cope with product seasonality, among other tasks. “That was the first problem solved,” he says.

That was followed by advances in demand sensing, giving retailers much more information about consumer behavior, and helping suppliers to more accurately plan manufacturing and distribution.

With the advent of ChatGPT, “AI has taken off,” Hariharan says. “I think we’re at the cusp of really interesting things that are beginning to happen.”

The real opportunity today, he says, lies in agentic AI, with its ability to carry out certain tasks autonomously. Organizations have long made  decisions along the “plan, source, make and fulfill” continuum that were siloed. What was missing was the “connective tissue” that could provide a coherent view of the entire supply chain, allow for tradeoffs in the various aspects of operations, and help companies cope with rapid change in markets.

Now, says Hariharan, there’s a “tremendous opportunity” to drive automation through key business processes, breaking down silos and helping companies to make better decisions at maximum speed.

AI today promises to put an end to the “firefighting” that has occupied so much of the time of supply chain professionals, as they struggle to carry out the sales and operations execution process in line with what’s really happening in the marketplace, Hariharan says.