According to
The Wall Street Journal, companies are increasingly incorporating the latest AI tools into their supply chains to cut costs, accelerate distribution and get ahead of potential disruptions.
While companies like ThredUp are optimistic about AI’s implications, noting that it can improve operations and margin, others are pointing out that, for now, AI’s limitations are relegating the tools to relatively isolated corners of their supply chain.
However, those corners of the supply chain can still have meaningful impacts. For example, the article also shares how German pharmaceutical and agricultural conglomerate Bayer has used FourKites’
Fin AI platform to navigate disruptions in the Red Sea as attacks by Houthi rebels on containerships have pushed many carriers and shippers to reroute shipments.
“You can see what is the container, what is the roadblock, what is the reason. It’s real time so you can make decisions,” said Johnny Ivanyi, supply-chain senior director at Bayer Crop Science, an agricultural division of Bayer.
That critical data has helped Bayer keep tabs on shipments en route to its manufacturing plants so it can better plan production, he said.
Speaking of AI, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang thinks that there will soon be a super-AI capable of taking the mission you give it and breaking it down into an execution plan. FourKites’ CTO Bo Tao writes for
After the
Despite signs of improving U.S. industrial activity, truckload and freight brokerage companies “face lingering excess capacity in the market, and the recent signs of net capacity gains only add insult to injury,” analysts at J.P. Morgan wrote in an April 9 report.
