GOODQUESTION
AI WILL DRIVE MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS, including improving eciency at the inventory and warehouse management level and allowing for more accurate forecasting, while also optimizing logistics. We will see exponential growth in the use of AI for risk monitoring, including AI-enabled cameras and tools for a proactive approach to potential disruptions.
Accelerating Supply Chains
7.5/10. 2026 is the year of practical AI in operations: triaging exceptions, reacting to weather, verifying invoices, tuning routing in real time, sensing demand signals and flexing capacity, and boosting warehouse/driver safety. Broad rollouts will take 1 to 3 years, but the pace is 5-10x faster than one year ago. –Sai Teja Yerapothina Sr. Director, Last Mile Delivery, Walmart
–Kara Brennion Consulting Specialist, Supply Chain Security and Risk Intelligence, BSI Consulting
7/10
AGENTIC SYSTEMS WILL AUTOMATE PLANNING and sourcing in 2026. The most
SUCCESS HINGES ON DATA QUALITY. While AI excels at demand forecasting and route optimization, the real breakthrough will be handling partner data chaos. Data 6 and below 8/10
6/10. AI will automate and enhance many of the planning and managerial tasks, but the physical movement of goods will still serve as a barrier to full
6 and below
7/10
transformative use case will be autonomous end-to-end replenishment. It becomes a 10 when humanoid robotics gain scale. –Balika Sonthalia Partner and Practice Leader, Strategic Operations, Americas, Kearney AI WILL ELEVATE BROKERAGE, cross-border, and managed transportation by enabling smarter rating, predictive visibility, automated compliance, faster exception resolution, and workflow automation that improves service, speed, accuracy, and overall network performance across the 3PL industry. –Mike Teresinski EVP Operations, Managed Transportation & Cross-Border, TA Services 8/10
implementation.
readiness is the barrier.
–Joe Adamski Senior Director, ProcureAbility
–Deepak Singh Co-founder and Chief Innovation O cer, Adeptia AGENTS TRAINED FOR TASKS like forecasting or optimization already add value but remain limited to specific activities. Given the speed of innovation we can expect (and hope) that the promise of pragmatic agentic AI, orchestrating agents with humans-in-the-loop, will begin to take shape and create human-centric AI eciency. –Jon Lawrence Chief Product O cer, JAGGAER
4/10. AI hype peaked in 2025, but results lagged. While machine learning powers automation hardware, broader applications like demand forecasting remain in early stages. –Jake Heldenberg Director, Sales Engineering, Warehouse Solutions, North America, Vanderlande 3/10. Most organizations will still be figuring out how to use AI, but early wins will include faster detection of demand changes, supply risks, and quality concerns. Planning teams will gain the most as AI improves diagnosis and speeds response. –Matthew Derganc Senior Director, SSA & Co.
The level of usefulness will be directly correlated with the ability to leverage AI for agentic orchestrations. We need to move beyond information retrieval. –Shabbir Dahod President & CEO, TraceLink Ranging from 3 to 10
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December 2025 • Inbound Logistics 7
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