Since ChatGPT’s release in late 2022, we’ve explored several use cases about the exciting technologies' potential impact on various industries. This article will explore the benefits and shortcomings of ChatGPT and other AIs in today's supply chain management. Customer satisfaction, overall production processes, and data analysis are only a few of the impacts that may benefit the supply chain globally. In this series of ChatGPT impacts on various industries, we tend to start by asking the AI "How will ChatGPT impact the supply chain?" and providing a summary of the results below.  

Here are several of the benefits that ChatGPT and other AIs will have on supply chain management: 

1. Customer Service & Support: Improve customer satisfaction with an integrated customer service experience. Offer personalized assistance, handle inquiries, provide information on order statuses, and troubleshoot common issues to reduce response times. 
2. Inventory Management: Create inventory management systems with analyzed historical data and current market conditions through monitored stocking levels, tracked expiration dates, and suggested optimal reorder points. 
3. Demand Forecasting: Optimize inventory levels and reduce overstocking and shortages by analyzing historical data and leveraging market trends to predict accurate demand forecasts. 
4. Procurement Support: Streamline processes and increase savings by identifying potential suppliers, comparing quotes, negotiating terms, and generating purchase orders. 
5. Training & Onboarding: Generate training modules, onboarding materials, processes, regulations, and best practices for new department employees. 
6. Compliance & Regulation: Track complex and frequent changes in line with industry standards and regulations. 
7. Data Analysis & Reporting: Improve the supply chain process by analyzing performance metrics, identifying areas of improvement, and generating reports with advanced data analysis. 
8. System Language Interfaces: Allow users to interact with various software systems and other platforms using natural conversational language within the program’s interface. 
9. Language Translation & Localization: Translate documents, messages, emails, and other written communication between bi-lingual parties worldwide. 
10.  Risk Assessment & Mitigation: Recognize potential risks within the current system, like logistic disruptions, geopolitical issues, or changes in consumer demand and overall trending behavior. 

Categorizing the Results:

Most of the impacts lead to two significant results: analyzing historical data to predict market trends and creating automation across the organization, from human resources to compliance. There’s no denying the beneficial impact this could have on nearly every industry in organizations of virtually any size. Still, there are no concrete answers as to how ChatGPT would make systems that aid in finding corporate collaborations and university partnerships or gain competitive intelligence, especially given ChatGPT’s information expires in September 2021.  

How is ChatGPT going to impact the supply chain? 

The proficiency of ChatGPT to swiftly and adeptly extract insights from data analysis across a spectrum of supply chain activities will facilitate more streamlined processes for all professionals in the supply chain. This technology will expand beyond data analysis, compliance regulation monitoring, and document translation to create an easy software integration that improves customer satisfaction and accurately predicts future needs. As helpful as automating tasks will be, the ability for ChatGPT to enhance the functionality across numerous departments, from procurement to human resources, boasts a bright future for internal infrastructures across all industries. 

Moving beyond the benefits, will ChatGPT be helpful for the cutting edge of supply chain management? Predictive analytics and consumer satisfaction enhancements are valuable, but when it comes to open innovation, looking towards potential partnerships, and investigating competitors, what role will ChatGPT play? 

In response to “How will ChatGPT help supply chain managers find corporate partnerships?” 

The program populated ten potential actions; however, only the top three were related to evaluating and looking for corporate partnerships. The other seven responses were misguided and related to marketing and sales tactics, specifically in generating outbound messaging, buyer journeys, and buyer personas. Like our other findings thus far, ChatGPT provides a good overview but needs to lay the groundwork for acting on its suggestions, nor does it provide relevant data on who may be a contender. 

ChatGPT delivered a similar response to the initial question regarding ChatGPT’s role in the supply chain; I may even argue the first three answers are simply reworded phrases of the previous insight. The overall summary is a good starting place, but the lack of evidence doesn’t get us any closer to an actual process to find corporate partners, nor does it suggest who would be a valuable candidate or who may pose a potential threat.  

ChatGPT and Competitive Intelligence in Supply Chain: 

“How will ChatGPT evaluate competitors in the supply chain?” 

Once again, ChatGPT refers to market research and data analysis. While these two key takeaways are significant, the program still needs to explicitly state how this process will be done or suggest any new discoveries on how to find external partners. 

Let’s see what happens when we get a bit more specific and look at one of the supply chain leaders in the pharmaceutical industry:  

Perhaps the query was too specific, but that’s where the frustration of the technology kicks in. There is value in the program’s ability to shift through an abundance of information to generate insights, predict trends, and analyze data. However, it currently lacks detailed information about where someone would go to begin looking at universities or where a tech transfer office would explore which corporations are interested in the same fields. 

Comparing ChatGPT to a purpose-built innovation search engine

While Wellspring’s Scout may not be able to answer questions in a poised paragraph like ChatGPT, the tech scouting platform can provide records indicating who is interested in what areas and which key players are collaborating. 

When using the key terms “supply chain management system,” and filtering for US companies, Scout delivers the top 10 results. From these top 10 players, we can identify who is engaged in this space and drill down to identify key partnerships.

Specifically looking at IBM, we can utilize the industry networks graph to identify who IBM is collaborating with. The gray bar indicates the number of shared records across IP categories, including patents, publications, press releases, startups, SEC filings, and more. 

Scout’s filters allow you to dive even further into investigating which corporations are working with which universities and who has recently published records that indicate their interest in the field and make them a strong contender for partnership. As the AI systems mature and can consume more real-time data, including individual contacts and contact information, ChatGPT’s ability to quickly synthesize data will become even more valuable. 

Summary

Regardless of industry or department, ChatGPT has an incredible potential to automate tasks or increase the efficiency of processes already in place. However, the platform’s primary value lies in its ability to quickly analyze data and generate summaries, not in real strategic decision-making scenarios. The program is a great tool, and coupled with other software systems, it will enhance any team’s performance. 

Schedule a short demo here if you want to see how searching in Scout for new technologies using your keywords or research topics compares.