AI in Supply Chain: Insights from Aidan Harrington’s ECR Ireland 2025 Presentation

At Synovia Digital, we’re constantly exploring how new technologies are transforming supply chain operations.

Yesterday, our Founder & CEO Aidan Harrington presented AI in Supply Chain: What’s Real, What’s Coming & How to Prepare at the ECR Ireland Supply Chain Summit – ECR Ireland.

Below is a full blog-form interpretation of his key messages—expanded with context, insights, and industry analysis.

1. AI in Retail & CPG Is Still Behind — And the Reasons Are Structural

McKinsey’s 2025 AI report shows a clear pattern: while Tech, Telecom, and Healthcare are scaling AI agents, Retail and CPG remain at the bottom.

Why AI adoption is lagging in these sectors

• Complex, unstructured processes: paper trails, tribal knowledge, human-heavy workflows.
• Legacy system complexity (SAP, WMS, TMS): low API-readiness and scattered data.
• Margin pressure & risk aversion: slower to adopt tech that touches operations.
• Organisational silos: sales, supply chain, category, and field teams operate on disconnected tools.
• Limited AI and data talent within the organisation.
• Firefighting culture: teams spend most of their time fixing issues instead of transforming processes.

These conditions create the “perfect storm” that slows AI acceleration — but also create the biggest opportunity once addressed.

2. Where AI Is Already Creating Real Value

AI isn’t theoretical anymore. Several areas already show consistent, measurable improvements across supply chains:

Five proven areas delivering impact today

• Demand sensing and forecast optimisation
• Automated replenishment and inventory flow
• Transport and routing optimisation
• Warehouse automation and robotics
• Predictive maintenance and digital twins

These capabilities enable better accuracy, faster response times, and reduced operational costs. Many organisations see double-digit gains once they stabilise data and processes.

3. 2025–2030: The Next Wave of AI Advantage

The next chapter of supply chain AI is far more transformative than isolated use cases.
Aidan’s message is clear: AI is moving from assisting planners to autonomously running decision loops across the entire supply chain.

What’s coming next

• Autonomous planning that senses, decides, and executes actions.
• End-to-end digital twins modelling networks, plants, lanes, and carbon flows.
• AI-native control towers that recommend and trigger interventions — not just visualise exceptions.
• Human + robot orchestration inside warehouses.
• Predictive risk models covering suppliers, sustainability, and disruptions.
• Joint intelligence between retailers and CPGs through shared demand and promo models.

These shifts redefine agility, resilience, and cost-to-serve.

4. What Organisations Should Do Now

Aidan outlined a practical roadmap for leaders who want to prepare their organisations for this next wave:

Seven steps to get ready

1. Pick your strategic priorities
Decide where supply chain should outperform — cost, carbon, speed, or agility.

2. Fix the foundations
Clean master data, unify demand/supply signals, capture event history, and invest in cloud-ready integration.

3. Start with closed-loop journeys
Choose 1–2 processes where AI can automate real decisions within weeks.

4. Redesign roles and behaviours
Shift from manual firefighting to exception management. Introduce AI-linked KPIs.

5. Build new skills
Train planners as scenario designers and create “citizen model owners” inside supply chain teams.

6. Implement the AI-native control tower
Move from dashboards to automated interventions across demand, supply, logistics, and service.

7. Scale toward autonomous planning
Adopt multi-agent decision models, connect digital twins to execution, and automate 30–70% of planning activities.

5. Final Takeaways

Three key messages summarise Aidan’s perspective:

1. Retail & CPG are the last frontier for AI — and the biggest opportunity

2. AI is already delivering real value in the core levers: demand, inventory, logistics, warehousing, and factories.

3. The next decade belongs to supply chains that run on closed loop, autonomous decision engines —but only if the foundations are ready.

At Synovia Digital, we help retailers, distributors, and CPG companies modernise their supply chains step by step—starting with the fundamentals that make AI effective.

If your organisation is planning its 2025–2030 roadmap, we’d love to help you define the vision, the data foundations, and the use cases that deliver the fastest ROI.