AI Demands New Skillsets. Is Your Supply Chain Team Ready?

The biggest fear your supply chain team members have about AI? That it’s going to replace them. That’s because so much of the attention around AI focuses on process automation and robotics.  

AI certainly has tremendous potential to improve the speed and efficiency of routine activities like load building and appointment scheduling, while also reducing physical work and improving employee satisfaction. AI agents can also help prioritize tasks, making tactical decisions minute-by-minute as supply chain conditions change. 

But a far greater and more strategic impact can be achieved by using AI to automate and accelerate higher-level decisions. For example, when a shipment leg or an appointment is missed, AI can look at all available options and reschedule automatically, without human intervention. AI can also autonomously balance transportation spend across modes and carriers, and re-prioritize cost versus service during capacity swings.

While the capabilities of AI are impressive, human team members play an absolutely critical role in optimizing those capabilities. At the strategic level, AI decision engines aren’t replacing your team, but they are creating a new generation of required skillsets.

What are those skills? And how can you start building them now, to increase your AI adoption rates and returns? That’s the topic of an upcoming LinkedIn Live event on February 3 called “Beyond the Tool: Cultivating ‘AI Thinking’ in Supply Chain Teams.”

Co-sponsored by Redwood and JBF Consulting — a trusted partner that helps shippers navigate tough logistics challenges — this event will debunk some of the biggest misconceptions about AI in supply chain. Hosts Thomas Deakins, EVP of Alliances at Redwood, and Rachelle Yeingst, Director of Strategy at JBF, will offer an expert perspective about what AI really enables — and the essential role played by humans in capturing its full potential.

What Exactly Is AI Thinking?

We’ve all witnessed how AI has already changed many of the skillsets involved in high-level supply chain management. Previously human planners were tasked with gathering operations and market data, analyzing it, making trade-offs, and arriving at static plans that spanned various time horizons. This process was repeated at a precisely defined cadence.

Today’s enormous data volumes, frequent supply chain disruptions, operations complexity, and fast-changing business landscape have made this approach obsolete. Human cognition, manual processes, and static planning cycles simply can’t keep up. We’re fortunate to have the power of AI to ingest real-time data on a dynamic basis and make the right decisions in micro-seconds, replacing days or weeks of manual effort.

But that doesn’t mean AI can autonomously run the supply chain. It simply means humans need to step into new, more value-added roles that complement modern AI solutions. Your team will need to understand how AI works, as well as how to proactively shape its outputs. New required skillsets include:

• Data preparation and cleansing. Modern AI can consider a range of data, both structured and unstructured, from within the supply chain network — as well as from external sources like news, weather and social media. The quality of AI decisions depends entirely on the quality of this data. Humans with expertise in data preparation and cleansing are urgently needed.
• Rules definition. While AI can make decisions quickly and precisely, it needs guardrails. That’s where humans come in. You’ll need team members capable of “tuning” AI, via a unique set of parameters, to achieve your specific objectives. Your business rules can focus on cost, service, revenue, asset utilization, sustainability — you name it, then step back and let AI achieve it.
• Prompt engineering. AI is largely a passive tool until your custom prompts make it active. If AI is monitoring your supply chain, what should it be looking for? Cost overruns? Late deliveries? When it encounters an exception, what queries are needed to find out more — and identify and address the root cause? AI can answer just about any question. But someone needs to make the right ask.
• Scenario modeling. One of the more powerful features of AI is its ability to consider the impacts of a given resolution pathway, before pulling an execution lever. AI can generate countless what-if simulations that test various decision outcomes. But who needs to explore countless options, when there are obvious constraints and limitations? Again, human guidance and judgement are essential. Your team needs to set up simulation parameters in advance. Team members also need to verify the highest-impact decisions made by AI and physically approve them, in case of a flaw in its logic or scenario generation rules. Risk is inherent, and your business results are at stake.
• Critical thinking, collaboration, and innovation. AI is built to make optimal decisions within certain well-defined parameters. But humans are still needed to complement AI, by thinking outside the box and exploring true innovation. Assessing risk versus reward is one area where human analysis is especially valuable.
• Continuous performance measurement and feedback. AI can’t train itself or measure its own outputs objectively. You need skilled team members to continuously assess the quality of AI outputs and ensure that AI-enabled decision engines are learning the right lessons over time. Machine learning must be guided by human expertise and intelligence via a continuous feedback loop.

AI Drives Value — But Your Team Drives AI

When AI fails to solve a problem or achieve a desired outcome, it’s rarely a technology issue. Instead, it’s caused by humans failing to train or guide the technology adequately. You can avoid this by recruiting “AI thinkers” that know how to capitalize on its potential.

It’s imperative today that you adopt AI, but it’s also imperative that you also adopt a “human in the loop” mindset. Your team members need to create the right context for AI, as well as navigate the real risks associated with decision automation.

As our co-hosts will discuss on February 3, the great news is that colleges and universities are actively incorporating AI thinking into their supply chain management programs. The new generation of professionals you need is out there. And, of course, there are also plenty of opportunities to make your existing team members smarter about AI.

Don’t Think Twice. Join Us on February 3.

Our upcoming LinkedIn Live event — “Beyond the Tool: Cultivating ‘AI Thinking’ in Supply Chain Teams” — will help you kick off 2026 with new insights and new excitement about the potential of AI. Register now to save your spot at this thought-provoking discussion.