Global Trade Sector Taps AI to Smooth Supply Chain Issues

The global trade sector may have an answer to supply chain hiccups: AI.

As Bloomberg News reported Sunday (Sept. 3), generative artificial intelligence (AI) and large-language models have emerged to help governments and businesses identify both problems and opportunities in a trading system worth $32 trillion.

“On the longer time horizon, we’ll see highly accurate predictive analytics and forecasting driven by integrated data from each step in the supply chain,” Julie Gerdeman, CEO of supply-chain risk assessment firm Everstream Analytics, told Bloomberg.

“This will automate decision-making to mitigate risk exposure and disruptions, leading to fully resilient, sustainable, and risk-adjusted supply chains.”

As the report notes, analyzing trade data can be a thankless job, requiring the review of almost countless, disparate records. With AI, companies can simplify that analysis — and thus simplify cross-border commerce.

Among these firms is the private trade data company ImportGenius, which tells Bloomberg it employs machine-learning tools like Amazon SageMaker to identify customs patterns, scan regulatory documents and translate foreign languages.

“We are building a language-learning model to serve as an antenna to detect, receive, and incorporate these indicators into our platform,” said Paulo Mariñas, the company’s chief technology officer.

And Nestle SA uses machine-learning software to detect issues with product quality and make sure its manufacturing lines are self-regulating and self-controlling.

As covered here in April, this shift towards AI in supply chain is occurring at a moment when shipping and logistics businesses are looking for smarter ways to operate.

Zvi Schreiber, CEO of trade tech solution Freightos, told PYMNTS in an interview in March that  the international freight market being a “largely offline endeavor” has led to “tens of billions of dollars of waste.”

That same offline, highly intermediated nature of global freight, he added, has been a major factor in all the supply chain hiccups affecting the industry in recent years.

“Fortunately, even the most entrenched and traditionally manual industries are now wising up to the benefits of modern technology,” that report said.

For example, vital business operations such as price setting already rely on technical processes and tools that are steadily turning more digital and more efficient.

“A next-generation cohort of business solutions are bringing to market solutions that layer artificial intelligence (AI) over those existing data flows to vastly improve the efficiency and impact of operational processes,” PYMNTS wrote.

More recently, PYMNTS looked at AI’s usefulness in the B2B space, where it can “bridge the priorities of both new- and old-generation commercial players by generating tailored communications, real-time quotes, and allowing for a personalized single source of truth.”