Supply chains are the lifeblood of global commerce. For decades, companies optimised them for cost and efficiency: manufacturing in the lowest-cost locations, holding lean inventories and delivering products exactly when required. However, this was hard to do well because customer demand was volatile
Over the past decade, however, a series of global shocks has exposed the fragility of that model. The Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions in Europe and the Middle East, and the US-China trade war have triggered factory shutdowns, labour shortages, shipping disruption and volatile costs.
As a result, many organisations have struggled to meet demand and have been forced to rethink their supply chain strategies. Many have diversified supplier networks, adopted nearshoring to bring production closer to customers, and invested in technologies to enhance their operations.
At the same time, rising customer expectations of speed and convenience, changes to customer preferences and personalisation across sectors such as consumer goods, retail and automotive have added a further layer of complexity.
Yet resilience alone is no longer enough. In 2026, supply chains must become intelligent. Organisations need AI-powered systems capable of anticipating disruption, modelling future scenarios and accelerating decision-making to protect both profitability and continuity. Many leaders recognise the challenge ahead. Blue Yonder’s Supply Chain Compass report found that 34% do not believe their supply chains are ready for the future, up from 27% a year earlier.
Using AI to connect supply chain partners
This is the challenge Blue Yonder helps organisations solve. Its AI-powered platform brings planning, execution and the wider supply chain network together in a single system. Traditionally, planning and execution have operated as separate processes, creating delays between deciding what should happen and responding to what is actually happening. Blue Yonder removes that gap, enabling planning and execution to operate as one continuous, real-time flow.
The platform connects suppliers, carriers, manufacturers, warehouses and retailers across a shared network, giving organisations access to live operational signals as conditions change. AI continuously analyses those signals, understands the implications across the end-to-end supply chain and recommends or initiates actions in response. The result is a supply chain that can adapt in near real time, turning planning from a periodic exercise into a dynamic capability embedded within day-to-day operations.
A resilient and adaptive supply chain has to move fast
“Historically, supply chains have been siloed by design,” says Andrea Morgan-Vandome, chief innovation officer at Blue Yonder. “Individual teams focused on their own areas of expertise. But today’s disruptions are increasingly systemic, which means suppliers, carriers, retailers and consumers all need to operate much more closely.”
Traditionally, supply chain solutions were also built for silos, so issues were often communicated through emails and phone calls exchanged across different organisations and time zones. The process was slow, manual and often reactive. Blue Yonder’s platform instead gives participants access to thousands of shared data signals, providing greater visibility into emerging issues. AI can then analyse the information, recommend actions and trigger execution, helping organisations respond to changing conditions as they happen.
For Morgan-Vandome, speed is critical. “A resilient and adaptive supply chain has to move fast,” she says. “We provide near real-time signals so organisations can understand what’s happening almost instantaneously, have AI make recommendations and make decisions far more quickly than before.”
How agentic AI is reshaping supply chain decision-making
Historically, supply chain decisions have been made by people working within siloed functions. But decision-making has become increasingly complex, requiring a deep understanding of data, real-time coordination across globally distributed teams and visibility into the impact of decisions across manufacturing, warehousing, transportation and fulfilment.
AI agents are making it possible to automate many of those decisions. In May, Blue Yonder announced the launch of its Model Training Factory in partnership with NVIDIA, a repeatable framework for training, testing and fine-tuning specialised supply chain models. These models are designed to perform complex tasks at a level comparable to supply chain experts, from warehouse management and transportation planning to merchandising and demand forecasting.
“Supply chains are all about precision,” says Morgan-Vandome. “The model factory enables us to build models that can reason within a specific business context and make more informed decisions.”
Supply chain professionals will spend less time on manual tasks and more time defining strategy
Blue Yonder is embedding AI across the entire supply chain workflow, from planning and forecasting to transportation, warehouse management, order fulfilment and network collaboration. Rather than automating isolated tasks, AI becomes part of how decisions are made and executed across the business. As conditions change, AI can identify risks, evaluate options, recommend actions and coordinate execution across interconnected functions, helping organisations respond faster and with greater confidence.
As AI assumes greater responsibility for decision-making and execution, human expertise shifts further upstream.
“It doesn’t mean people are no longer needed,” Morgan-Vandome says. “What changes is their focus. Supply chain professionals will spend less time on manual tasks and more time defining strategy, setting objectives and providing the context that guides these systems.”
Building an open, interoperable ecosystem
The transition to end-to-end supply chains also depends on integration at scale. Over the past decade, organisations have invested heavily in ERP and procurement technologies. Supply chain platforms therefore need to connect seamlessly with existing systems rather than require companies to rebuild their technology estates. Blue Yonder supports this through APIs, cloud-native architecture and standardised data connections.
But integration alone is not enough. Interoperability is equally important. While integration allows data to move between systems, interoperability ensures that information can be translated into decisions and actions consistently across planning, warehouse management, transportation, order management and partner platforms.
Visibility and resilience remain essential. But as supply chains become more interconnected, competitive advantage will increasingly depend on the ability to predict disruption and respond before it materialises. Organisations that can combine data, automation and human expertise effectively will be better positioned to protect margins, maintain continuity and adapt to whatever comes next.
Supply chains are the lifeblood of global commerce. For decades, companies optimised them for cost and efficiency: manufacturing in the lowest-cost locations, holding lean inventories and delivering products exactly when required. However, this was hard to do well because customer demand was volatile
Over the past decade, however, a series of global shocks has exposed the fragility of that model. The Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions in Europe and the Middle East, and the US-China trade war have triggered factory shutdowns, labour shortages, shipping disruption and volatile costs.
As a result, many organisations have struggled to meet demand and have been forced to rethink their supply chain strategies. Many have diversified supplier networks, adopted nearshoring to bring production closer to customers, and invested in technologies to enhance their operations.
