Show Notes
AI may be reshaping every corner of the supply chain, but nowhere is the shift more profound—or misunderstood—than in planning. In this week’s Talking Supply Chain, Gartner Director Analyst Jan Snoeckx explains why autonomous and agentic AI are no longer abstract promises but practical capabilities gaining traction inside large enterprises. Gartner’s latest research shows that autonomous planning has officially passed the “peak of inflated expectations,” moving out of hype and into measurable value. That shift, Snoeckx notes, reflects a deeper mindset change: companies aren’t asking if AI can help planners anymore; they’re asking how it should.
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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.