The autonomous supply chains of the future won’t just respond — they will think, learn and act. At the forefront of this rapid transformation is Blue Yonder Inc., powered by a deep-rooted history in artificial intelligence and a bold vision for gen AI.

The world has changed, expanding greatly in a short timeframe. How is AI being used to temper emerging geopolitical, technological, institutional and economic shocks in global supply chains?

“The supply chain is facing more disruption today than almost any other time,” said Chris Burchett (pictured), senior vice president of gen AI at Blue Yonder. “It’s not just demand. It’s supply, it’s everything, it’s tariffs — it’s across the board. Our customers use AI to solve those complex problems. They need to manage the inventory levels at the right point in each location in their supply chain, and they need to ensure on-time delivery of their orders through a complex network.”

Burchett spoke with theCUBE’s Dave Vellante during the “AI and the Autonomous Supply Chain” interview series on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how AI use in supply chain operations has evolved from early machine learning models to autonomous decision-making agents. (* Disclosure below.)

Autonomous supply chains in detail

Volatile factors such as globalization, e-commerce and several geopolitical disruptions shift the needs of supply chains. Autonomous supply chains have evolved to predict, adapt and respond dynamically to these shifting winds. The subsequent forward evolution demands a transition from classical optimization to probabilistic, machine learning-based approaches, according to Burchett.

“Our customers are eager for AI to be able to respond to this new world that they live in,” he said. “Last year, we did a survey, and over 80% of the global organizations that we surveyed have piloted or implemented some form of generative AI in their supply chains. Ninety-one percent have found it to be very effective in helping them deal with the disruption and in their decision-making process. I think with all of that’s happening in the supply chain, AI is going to separate winners from losers in a way that really hasn’t happened in the past.”

Blue Yonder is not new to AI; the company computes over 20 billion AI predictions daily. These insights power decisions around inventory placement, delivery timelines and supplier coordination, according to Burchett.

“The supply chain world started with optimization technologies,” he said. “In the ’90s, and even today, we started doing linear programs and mixed integer programs to model constraints on your supply capacity primarily. This is something Blue Yonder is best in class at doing. We have a rich history doing this. I would call that the more deterministic optimization, hardcore mathematical optimization. In addition to that, we have a rich set of heuristics you can add to that.”

AI’s current role in autonomous supply chains is not just about predictions, but about resilience. By identifying anomalies, forecasting demand shifts and coordinating multi-enterprise responses, it has become indispensable. As such, companies without a robust AI supply chain strategy risk falling behind, Burchett added.

Here’s the complete video interview with Chris Burchett, part of the “AI and the Autonomous Supply Chain” interview series:

(* Disclosure: Blue Yonder Group Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Blue Yonder nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE