Show Notes
Artificial intelligence is widely expected to accelerate global trade, improve decision-making, and unlock new efficiencies across supply chains. But beneath that promise lies a reality few are grasping, and it is one that might result in more market barriers than anticipated. In this episode of Talking Supply Chain, host Brian Straight is joined Dravida Seetharam, a fellow at the Center for Global Enterprise, and Sarah Lahti, who is the Director of Operations and Program Management for the Digital Supply Chain Institute, to help make sense of AI and whether AI is truly leveling the playing field or quietly creating new barriers. From infrastructure and talent gaps to regulatory fragmentation and cyber risk, the discussion highlights how AI may be reshaping not just supply chains, but who gets to compete in them.
More from Supply Chain Management Review Podcast
On this episode of Talking Supply Chain, host Brian Straight speaks with Archita Prasad, president of UPS Capital, and Ashley Hillman, vice president of product at UPS Capital, about connecting fraud prevention, shipping protection and claims management across the customer journey. Their conversation explores why payment approval doesn’t eliminate an order’s risk, how AI can help identify patterns across disconnected information, and why stronger controls must account for legitimate customers. For supply chain leaders, the discussion also makes a direct connection between disputed transactions and the operating costs already incurred to fulfill them.
On this episode of Talking Supply Chain, host Brian Straight speaks with Jonathan Brooks, CEO and founder of Warehouse on Wheels, about the company’s WOW Supply Chain Activity Index. Their conversation explores how trailer deployment activity can complement established indicators, why a headline number needs context, and how leaders can use market signals when evaluating capacity commitments.
Supply chain organizations have become better at seeing disruptions. Dashboards, control towers and connected equipment can alert teams when something goes wrong. The harder task is determining why it happened, choosing a response and confirming that the response worked. On this episode of Talking Supply Chain, host Brian Straight speaks with Michael Becher, vice president of digitalization and AI at Körber Supply Chain, about closing that gap in warehouse operations. Their conversation covers equipment downtime, predictive maintenance, root cause analysis, AI agents and the safeguards needed before systems take action on their own.
Worker wellbeing is often treated as a compliance or ESG responsibility. Carmel Giblin, president and CEO of the Ethical Supply Chain Program, argues that it should instead be viewed as an operational capability. In this episode of Talking Supply Chain, Giblin explains why audits alone cannot provide continuous visibility, how trusted grievance mechanisms reveal risks workers may not disclose during an audit, and why more reports do not necessarily indicate a worse supplier. She also discusses measurable returns from worker-wellbeing programs, the role AI can play in identifying patterns and why human interaction remains essential when workers are vulnerable.
Over the past two decades, supply chain has moved from a largely behind-the-scenes operational function focused on cost and efficiency to a strategic enterprise capability that touches everything from growth and customer experience to geopolitics, sustainability and national security. Few people have had a better vantage point on that transformation than Abe Eshkenazi, CEO of the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM). On this episode of Talking Supply Chain, host Brian Straight speaks with Eshkenazi about how the profession has changed during his tenure, why COVID represented a turning point for supply chain, the rise of the chief supply chain officer, AI and the continuing importance of people, and the challenges the industry still has not solved.