Resilient by design: Reinventing supply chains with human-agent operations

In 2026, 22% of organisations had piloted or implemented AI agents in their supply chains, up from 16% in 2025. The share of organisations with no plans to explore AI agents also fell from 32% to 21%, indicating growing market interest and adoption maturity.

Sixty-eight percent of organisations plan to increase supply chain transformation investment over the next 12 to 18 months. In addition, 65% have allocated a dedicated budget for AI agents and agentic AI initiatives within the supply chain.

Geopolitical instability, trade restrictions, material shortages, inflation, cyber threats, climate disruption, and changing customer expectations are accelerating transformation. Seventy-five percent of executives say their supply chains have changed significantly, while 71% report having dedicated transformation teams.

Continuous disruption is making resilience an operational and strategic requirement. Seventy-three percent of organisations identify resilience as a top supply chain priority, but fewer than half regularly assess dependencies or define KPIs for reducing exposure to high-risk dependencies.

Geopolitical instability can disrupt sourcing, manufacturing, transportation, and access to critical materials. Seventy-eight percent of organisations consider it a significant supply chain challenge, while 62% are concerned about maintaining seamless operations.

Organisations exploring or adopting AI agents expect an average improvement of approximately 10% in supply chain resilience over the next three years. AI agents can support earlier risk detection, faster scenario evaluation, coordinated responses, and recovery from disruptions.

Eighty-four percent of organisations believe humans must retain authority to validate decisions made by AI agents. Another 80% say trust in AI-driven supply chain decisions depends on people being able to review and intervene when necessary.

Supply chains involve interconnected systems, uneven data quality, regulatory constraints, exceptions, and decisions requiring contextual judgment. Consequently, only 25% of organisations expect fully automated, agentic-AI-powered supply chains within the next three to five years.

AI agents can execute monitoring, analysis, coordination, and routine workflows, while people retain authority over governance, exceptions, trade-offs, escalations, and high-impact decisions. This model combines AI-driven execution with human accountability and intervention.

Supply chain sovereignty helps organisations secure critical goods and capabilities, reduce dependency on unstable regions, and maintain strategic autonomy. Ninety-eight percent of organisations have discussed supply chain sovereignty with their boards.

Forty-four percent of organisations already have a supply chain sovereignty strategy, while 43% are formulating one. Resilience, agility, domestic or trusted sourcing, secure production capacity, and supply chain transparency are prominent priorities within these strategies.

Organisations report visibility into an average of 51% of tier-1 suppliers, but this falls to 23% for tier-2 suppliers. This visibility gap can make it harder to identify dependencies, capacity issues, bottlenecks, and emerging supplier risks.

Sixty-three percent of executives say sustainability investments have improved supply chain operational efficiency. In addition, 51% say these investments have strengthened their organisations’ ability to anticipate and respond to supply chain disruptions.

Fifty-five percent of organisations are investing in foundational technologies needed to scale AI agents, while 41% are building agent-to-agent communication capabilities. Reliable data, connected systems, security frameworks, governance, and common data definitions remain essential foundations.

The intelligent supply chain will connect AI agents, business systems, data, and people through coordinated orchestration. AI will support risk sensing, scenario evaluation, and routine execution, while humans remain responsible for strategic judgment, governance, and critical decisions.