How CSCOs Can Maximize Growth With Autonomous Supply Chains

In the era of autonomous business, supply chain success depends on three key capabilities. 

CEOs view autonomous supply chains as a key business growth driver

Amid ongoing geopolitical, technological and talent shifts, CEOs are prioritizing the long-term development of autonomous business to help their organizations pivot quickly and succeed in fast-changing environments. Gartner business and technology insights reveal that most CEOs see AI as a key driver of this success — and 61% are working on a strategy that integrates human employees and machines (such as AI agents and robotics) to boost performance.

As organizations make the shift toward autonomous business, many need to rethink operating models, and chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) have a critical role to play in designing them. But only 12% of CEOs believe their CSCOs have the AI expertise to meet growth goals around autonomous business.

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Maximize growth with an autonomous supply chain through key capabilities and a plan

Align with your CEO’s vision for autonomous business by creating a strategy to develop the core capabilities of an autonomous supply chain.

Invest in self-governing, self-optimizing autonomous operations

Gartner insights show that 73% of supply chain organizations need to be able to react quickly to changing conditions. In an autonomous business environment, machines can make their own decisions, take their own actions, and learn and grow their capacity to execute instantaneously and at scale.

Autonomous operations don’t just automate physical processes like production, logistics and distribution; they also automate the decision-making processes that govern these activities. This frees employees from repetitive tasks, allows for higher-volume data analysis for each decision and enables those decisions to be taken at any time of day or night across the supply chain. By integrating human insights into automated systems, autonomous operations help ensure that decision making stays consistent, and mitigate the risks associated with skill shortages.

Automate digital product service and delivery

Integrating real-time data, automation and AI-driven decision making enables the supply chain to anticipate needs, optimize inventory and deliver services with minimal human intervention — for example, by automating product replenishment when customer supplies run low, or using digital twins to optimize and gather data on the usage of physical equipment. 

Gartner insights show that by 2027, 38% of CEOs plan to use automated systems to design and launch new digital products and services. And supply chain leaders who have implemented or plan to implement a digital business model in the next two years say that up to 69% of company revenue may be driven by digital offerings.

Prioritize capabilities that meet the demands of machine customers

Machine customers are nonhuman systems or devices that purchase goods or services automatically. Examples include smart devices that order supplies on their own, algorithms that keep products in stock and digital assistants that recommend deals to users.

Nearly 30% of CEOs already have or are developing strategies to engage with machine customers and AI agents. Another 21% plan to do so by 2026. As machine customer orders increase, supply chains will need to adapt by becoming more automated, integrating digital partners and improving data sharing to handle new types of demand and prevent sudden shortages.

Follow a three-step roadmap to maximize growth with an autonomous supply chain

Based on the maturity and evolution of AI-driven supply chain technologies, Gartner expects autonomous supply chains will develop over the next 10 years and beyond. Develop yours over time in the following phases:

  • Task automation has been a mainstream focus of most supply chains over the past several years, using technology to handle simple, repetitive tasks for greater efficiency and cost savings. There is still much progress to be made, as many processes have yet to be automated. The benefits of expanding automation include higher productivity and enablement of new business models and ways of working.

  • Decision augmentation uses advanced, still-evolving generative and nongenerative AI technologies to help automate complex decisions that previously required human judgment — for example, finding insights within terabytes of real-time data. This phase allows companies to process large amounts of data quickly and accurately, with technology doing the heavy lifting and humans overseeing and guiding the automated systems. Gartner expects augmentation to become mainstream in the next two to five years.

  • Supply chain autonomy — the final destination — is where most low-value human activities are fully automated. Most supply chain leaders expect that the majority of their supply chain activities could become autonomous in the coming years, but human traits like creativity and empathy will still be needed for oversight and strategic decisions. Gartner expects supply chain autonomy to become mainstream in the next five to 10 years.

Autonomous supply chain FAQs

What is autonomous business?

Gartner defines autonomous business as a style of business partly governed and majority-operated by self-learning software agents, that provides digital products and services to machine-customer-prevalent markets.

How does autonomous business shape the vision for an autonomous supply chain?

Over the long term, autonomous business will change how people work across the entire organization. Challenges like economic uncertainty, worker shortages and supply chain problems are speeding up the move toward more automated and AI-driven businesses. CSCOs have an opportunity to transform the supply chain into an engine that drives autonomous business, the capacity to adapt flexibly in an evolving market, and business growth.

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