CHATGPT –THREE RED FLAGS FOR S UPPLY CHAIN USERS

What does ChatGPT, the AI chatbot, mean for supply chains?

Supply chain guru Kevin O’Marah, founder of Zero100 and former director at Amazon recently suggested that it breaks the trust required for successful supply chain operations. “If you can’t spot the difference between what the chatbot says and what your best people would say, you are in trouble. At first, it will seem innocuous or even helpful, especially if the ChatGPT answer is 80 to 90 percent correct. In time, however the lack of human perspective bridging information sucked from hundreds of websites to the context of your question, will fail you, and perhaps spectacularly,” he blogged on the Zero100 website.

“ChatGPT will worsen the trust deficit, at least for now, by enabling people who know nothing about a topic to sound like experts. Supply chain leaders should learn how to use this new tool/toy if we want to maintain and build trust with customers.”

He added that using the tool may stifle innovation because “it can answer questions, but it can’t imagine operational breakthroughs.” and other critical environmental factors at every step of the journey.

Furthermore, O’Marah said while the results of a ChatGPT serach may look credible, there’s no research trail, no citatiions, nothing to back the answer up. In short, treat it with a good deal of skepticism.

These are highly valuable capabilities for shippers and customers of everything from ice cream and other perishable goods to pharmaceuticals that require 100 percent cold chain integrity from the manufacturer to the final destination. With 5G networks practically ubiquitous right now, we’ll see an explosion in the use of IoT devices in the supply chain in the coming year.

Data as the common thread

The common theme in 2023 is one we’ve all become very familiar with – data. IoT devices will create more of it – people estimate 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day; BDaaS will help us store and manage it; and AI will make better use of it. While creating, storing and making use of data has been generating billions in profits for many companies for many years, the supply chain industry is just now catching up.

There’s no better evidence for the market opportunity than the likes of Amazon, Google and Microsoft all making plays for their slice of the logistics data pie. And I suspect that there’s plenty to go around.

Delbert Cope is an IT professional, with experience as CTO at Fourkites, Blue Newt Software and has been involved in numerous startups.