Policy & Compliance
An ‘anxiety doom spiral’ appears as AI advances in supply chains
The following article fi rst appeared on The Loadstar website in February 2025 and is repeated here for Members’ bene fi t
A rti fi cial intelligence is on the march in supply chains. In a survey conducted in late 2023 by Gartner, 80% of chief supply chain of fi cers were planning to deploy generative AI in 2024; the consultancy’s latest study found 72% had invested in AI. For example, Lean Solutions, a workforce optimisation specialist, decided seven months ago to take a lead in AI deployment for its clientele and teamed up with technology vendors, having decided to become an aggregator of different technologies rather than a builder. Having run a number of pilots and identified target areas, Lean is in talks with more than 30 of its largest clients about implementing AI solutions, said CTO Alfonso Quijano, adding that the plan is to achieve 70% of AI penetration by the end of this year. For the most part, clients are looking at augmentation strategies that aim for increased productivity from AI deployment, he reported. Time savings Gartner’s latest study found impressive results: the use of GenAI tools, spread across a range of uses, has brought time savings of 4.11 hours a week for individual desk-based workers. This translates into an increase in productivity of almost 10%, noted Quijano. However, Gartner found productivity gains slumped at team level. On an aggregated basis, team time savings from GenAI dropped 63%. The study’s authors added that team leaders were more than 10% less likely to see improvements in output, and fewer than half of team managers in the survey found that GenAI was
improving their group’s work quality. Gartner also observed that gains were less pronounced at the frontline worker level than at individual desk workers. To some extent, this may be a reflection of where GenAI is deployed. Vitaly Smilianets, founder and CEO of aviation software provider Awery, has seen comparatively little activity at the front line. “Back-end work is where gains have been most significant in cargo,” he said. Warehouse automation is rather expensive, which raises the barriers for AI applications and makes this largely a domain for large players, Quijano noted. He pointed out that most processes where AI is involved are not automated end to end, but at most 80%, leaving 20% to be dealt with through exception handling. He described 2025 as a year of experimentation with AI, adding that, currently, productivity gains are also held back by companies’ hesitation to deploy GenAI at scale.
In part, this is a result of anxiety. Deployment requires management to cope with employee fears of losing their job to the new technology – Gartner describes a “GenAI anxiety doom spiral”, an increase in worker anxiety as the number of GenAI tools they are confronted with rises. This results in lower productivity, prompting more investment in GenAI tools. GenAI limitations Smilianets also pointed to the limitations GenAI faces. In the cargo industry, lack of access to real-time data constituted a hurdle at this point, he noted. This limits the use of the technology to aspects like scanning and extracting data from documents, reports, and e-mails rather than providing projections on load factors or pricing. “Cargo is complicated. There are many stakeholders and many documents involved. Maybe it would be easier to roll out GenAi in insurance or banking,” he said.
“ the use of GenAI tools, spread across a range of uses, has brought time savings of 4.11 hours a week for individual desk-based workers
April 2025 | 23
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