ASUG is proud to present this guest per­spec­tive from Dar­cy Mac­Claren, Chief Rev­enue Offi­cer of SAP Dig­i­tal Sup­ply Chain, on the top­ic of embed­ding AI in dig­i­tal sup­ply chain. 

In the lat­est Mis­sion: Impos­si­ble sequel released ear­li­er this month, the vil­lain is sim­ply called ​“The Enti­ty.” An exper­i­men­tal arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) pro­gram, The Enti­ty has gone rogue, and Tom Cruise’s dare­dev­il secret agent is the only one who can save the world from its awe­some, ter­ri­ble pow­er. Set­ting aside Cruise’s trade­mark sav­ior com­plex, the film con­tin­ues a decades-long tra­di­tion of Hol­ly­wood posi­tion­ing tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion as some­thing to be afraid of — that our most cut­ting-edge cre­ations will inevitably turn on us and destroy everything. 

Beyond the box office, today’s busi­ness lead­ers should not fear AI; they should embrace it. Doing so is essen­tial­ly a require­ment if you seek to man­age and opti­mize your busi­ness and sup­ply chain oper­a­tions. The amount of data and com­plex­i­ty sup­ply chain pro­fes­sion­als are specif­i­cal­ly deal­ing with today is over­whelm­ing. AI can help make this vol­ume man­age­able and action­able as busi­ness­es work to build risk-resilient and effi­cient sup­ply chains. 

Let’s use this space to dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­i­ties of AI, why there’s noth­ing to be scared of, and what it will look like to build reli­able and respon­si­ble process­es for the future. Done right, we’ll be able to effec­tive­ly embrace arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence… and we just might be able to fend off its future attempts at world domination.

The Pow­er of Arti­fi­cial Intelligence

While most of the recent AI buzz has revolved around open-source, large-lan­guage mod­els like Chat GPT, there is far more to it than that. AI’s pow­er has the capa­bil­i­ty to dra­mat­i­cal­ly change how we think about sup­ply chains across every sin­gle indus­try. Today’s lead­ers are already find­ing ways to use machine learn­ing to antic­i­pate demand at extreme­ly gran­u­lar lev­els, ensur­ing they can opti­mize inven­to­ry, reduce waste, and improve over­all cus­tomer satisfaction.

What else can it do? Even­tu­al­ly, com­pa­nies will be able to use AI to cap­ture and ana­lyze com­plex data sets in just min­utes, enabling stronger deci­sion mak­ing and opti­mized deliv­ery routes with for­ward-look­ing, demand-focused algo­rithms. Robot­ics devel­op­ment can even help auto­mate tasks relat­ed to pack­ag­ing and ship­ping, fur­ther increas­ing speed and efficiency. 

In short, AI will help sup­ply chain man­agers make informed, con­fi­dent deci­sions about tomorrow’s chal­lenges. What­ev­er the vari­ables, they’ll be prepared. 

The Impor­tance of Inno­vat­ing Responsibly

A com­mon fear relat­ed to AI is that its advance­ment will come at the cost of actu­al humans and their jobs. In real­i­ty, AI has the poten­tial to cre­ate new­er and improved jobs for today’s work­ers, as employ­ees look to max­i­mize their impact on their companies. 

I expect to see new roles devel­op that require a com­bi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal and human skills, in areas like data sci­ence, machine-learn­ing engi­neer­ing, and AI train­ing. Think about it: We already use AI to cut back on repet­i­tive tasks for employ­ees, while empow­er­ing them for reskilling and upskilling in high­er-val­ue areas. Now, we’ll be able to con­tin­ue enabling and opti­miz­ing their skills, which will lead them into more sophis­ti­cat­ed and strate­gic roles. 

Still, we must always stop to think whether we should, rather than becom­ing pre­oc­cu­pied sim­ply with whether we can. That’s why the broad­er ambi­tion around AI must be to cre­ate a human-cen­tered, social­ly sus­tain­able approach to inno­va­tion. We must strike a care­ful bal­ance between estab­lish­ing rules and gov­er­nance with enabling progress. Suc­cess will be pred­i­cat­ed large­ly on three pillars: 

• Rel­e­vance: Pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty data from the busi­ness that enables real-time deci­sion making
• Respon­si­bil­i­ty: Ensur­ing trans­par­ent AI that respects the pri­va­cy of sen­si­tive data and avoids bias
• Results: Pro­duc­ing clear ben­e­fits from AI that prove and jus­ti­fy its busi­ness value

The Vision for Tomorrow

What does this all actu­al­ly look like? At SAP, we’ve been work­ing with lead­ing experts for years via our AI Ethics Advi­so­ry Pan­el, where we reg­u­lar­ly explore the effects and impli­ca­tions of enter­prise AI deploy­ment. We were also one of the first com­pa­nies to define our AI guid­ing prin­ci­ples back in 2018, and we are still work­ing to chart the path for­ward regard­ing respon­si­ble AI. Our AI part­ner­ships — includ­ing with IBM, Google and Microsoft — are designed to enhance AI offer­ings across our entire solu­tion port­fo­lio, pri­or­i­tiz­ing trans­paren­cy and integri­ty every step of the way. 

ASUG mem­bers will con­tin­ue to see AI more deeply embed­ded as tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tors advance their use of this inno­va­tion. It will become sim­pler to roll things out at scale and eas­i­er to under­stand and build on AI solu­tions. Above all else, AI is about empow­er­ing your busi­ness to do what it does best. Every­one has a gen­er­al under­stand­ing of AI’s impor­tance. But the ulti­mate dif­fer­en­tia­tor will be expe­ri­enc­ing true results. 

The poten­tial to cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties, illu­mi­nate mar­ket pos­si­bil­i­ties, and increase rev­enues is mas­sive. Your mis­sion, should you choose to accept it, is to lever­age AI to not only bet­ter serve your cus­tomers but, ulti­mate­ly, to take your busi­ness to an entire­ly new level. 

Mis­sion: Possible.

Dar­cy Mac­Claren is Chief Rev­enue Offi­cer of SAP Dig­i­tal Sup­ply Chain.