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Generative AI and supply chains: a match made in heaven?

When ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November last year, few beyond the labs of OpenAI would have predicted the impact it would go on to have in just a few short months. Trained on colossal amounts of data from articles, websites and social-media posts gathered from across the internet, as well as transcribed interviews that capture the nuances of human speech, GPT-4 is undoubtedly a transformative step towards general awareness of Generative AI, but also its practical applications. B y detecting linguistic patterns and familiar phrases, OpenAI’s large language model (or LLM) has learned to infer what word is likely way that the application fundamentally learns. Trained with over 570 GB of data gathered from all corners of the internet and more than 300 billion words, it has a vast data lake from which to learn.

to follow from a sequence of words, thus providing almost ‘mind reading’ capabilities for users. While many established tech brands have been quick to downplay the significance of generative AI, reactions from tech giants such as Google and Microsoft, suggest otherwise, sparking somewhat of a 21st-century AI ‘gold rush’. Mainstream technology The Gartner Hype Cycle for Artificial Intelligence predicts that generative AI will become a mature mainstream technology in non-supply chain applications in two to five years, and while OpenAI’s creation caught the fields of education and academia completely by surprise, GPT-4 itself is unlikely to have a material impact on how supply chain decisions are made in the near-term future. The reason Gartner believes this is based on the

Marko Pukkila, Gartner Supply Chain’s vice president, analyst and chief of research, says, “Because supply chain models are so complex and specific to each company, the expected arrival (of Generative AI) into the mainstream is anticipated to be 10 years out.” In a best-case scenario, that’s five times longer than non-supply chain applications. A decade is a long time in the tech space, but that does not mean supply chain leaders can afford to simply sit back and hope that generative AI simply fizzles out. Ever since the rise of voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri, I have believed that human-to-computer interaction will fundamentally change from menu-driven click interfaces to more natural conversational interfaces. The advent of first ChatGPT and now GPT-4, has made me double down on the belief that we are not far from the days when user interfaces will see a fundamental shift to become more conversational and computers will be able to interpret human asks without a strict menu or button-driven user interfaces.

Sanjeev Siotia Chief Technology Officer at Manhattan

“TECH LEADERS WHO DON’T THINK ABOUT HOW TO APPLY GENERATIVE AI IN THE FUTURE ARE LIKELY PUTTING THEIR COMPANIES AT A LONG-TERM DISADVANTAGE.”

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COMMERCE TRENDS - 2023/2024