Three ways CSCOs can harness uncertainty to drive growth in the AI era

Noha Tohamy, distinguished VP analyst, Gartner Supply Chain Practice

Ask any CEO what’s on their mind for 2025, and you’ll hear a familiar refrain: growth. Despite a world that feels more unpredictable by the day — think trade wars, shifting geopolitics, and labor market disruptions — growth remains firmly at the top of the executive agenda. In fact, 59% of CEOs surveyed by Gartner say it’s their number one business priority, outpacing technology and financial concerns.

However, achieving growth in today’s environment isn’t business as usual. The playbook is changing and when it comes to the role that supply chain plays, it’s not enough to focus solely on cost and efficiency.

The pressure is on for supply chain leaders to not only keep up, but to get ahead, and in particular, by leveraging AI. Sixty-five percent of CEOs say that AI will define the next era, just like the internet defined the e-business era, and 73% think AI is the top technology that will support business growth.

CEOs are looking to supply chains not just for resilience, but for dynamic capacity: the ability to flex, scale, and capture new opportunities as markets shift. Agile network design, segmentation, and capacity optimization are no longer “nice to haves.” They are essential to supporting geographic expansion, M&A, and new revenue streams.

Customers want enhanced personalization, seamless technology, and sustainable options, often at the lowest possible cost. CSCOs must respond by building outcome-driven supply chain models that can deliver differentiated service levels for different customer segments. This means going beyond traditional cost analysis to understand the true cost to serve, commercializing excess capacity as new services, and working directly with customers to define what success looks like.

What can CSCOs do to support CEOs’ mandate in this AI-dominated era?

By taking bold action on three critical priorities, supply chain leaders can turn today’s uncertainty into tomorrow’s growth engine.

1. Rewire the supply chain for AI

Our survey finds less than a quarter of CEOs in supply-chain-intensive industries believe their operating models are equipped for an AI-driven future. Even more striking, just 8% of CEOs say their CSCOs have strong AI savvy. The biggest barrier? The human element: talent, skills, and culture.

For supply chain leaders, this is both a wake-up call and an opportunity to step up. CSCOs must become champions of AI transformation, deepening their own expertise, building a common language around AI, and advocating for supply chain needs as the enterprise operating model evolves.

This new operating model must go beyond knowledge workers and embrace the realities of frontline operations. It requires investments in foundational technology, process redesign, and upskilling for both digital and physical roles.

Additionally, CSCOs should partner with digital leaders, industry groups, and external partners to identify high-impact AI use cases, clarify how operational gains and risks will be shared, and ensure supply chain requirements are built into the blueprint for the AI-enabled enterprise. By leading from the front, CSCOs can help their organizations close the readiness gap and unlock the transformative power of AI.

2. Address automation and workforce prioritization dilemmas

This year’s CEO survey exposes a striking conflict: while expectations for automation and AI are soaring, focus on workforce development is declining. The percentage of CEOs prioritizing workforce issues has dropped by 20% year-over-year, and efforts to attract and retain talent have nearly halved. Yet, 44% of CEOs say the inability to hire or develop the right AI talent is the second biggest barrier to AI adoption.

At the same time, CEOs are betting big on automation: 44% plan to deploy fully automated logistics, distribution, and production systems within three years, and nearly half expect to engage with AI agents or machine customers by 2026. But only 2% of organizations have a strategy for integrating humans and machines and a staggering 31% don’t see the need for one.

For CSCOs, this is a critical moment to bridge the gap. CSCOs should focus on upskilling their existing workforce, leveraging enterprise-wide technical resources, and building blueprints for human-AI collaboration. This means keeping humans in the loop for decision-making, providing ethical guardrails, and ensuring reciprocal learning between people and machines.

In physical operations, where AI-driven robots interact with frontline workers, training and oversight become even more vital. By leading on workforce strategy, CSCOs can help their organizations realize the full potential of AI, without leaving their people behind.

3. Scale AI for business value

Sixty-five percent of CEOs surveyed believe AI will define the next business era, and 73% of CSCOs see it as the most significant technology for the next three years. But the appetite for AI “innovation for innovation’s sake” is waning. CEOs want to see AI deliver measurable, scalable business value: improved efficiency, reduced costs, and new revenue streams.

Supply chains are uniquely positioned to deliver on this promise. Embedding AI in demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and asset maintenance can generate direct, quantifiable improvements in financial performance. But to realize these benefits, CSCOs must develop comprehensive AI strategies, with clear governance frameworks to track, scale, or retire pilot projects based on real business impact.

Digital strategy leaders must ensure AI is woven into the existing technology stack, not siloed in isolated pilots. By embracing a spectrum of AI technologies—traditional, generative, and agentic—CSCOs can drive operational improvements and demonstrate the business value of AI at scale.

The path forward: Seize the moment

CSCOs who act boldly by making supply chain a growth engine will be best positioned to lead their organizations through uncertainty and into a new era of opportunity.

To begin, focus on deepening your AI expertise, championing cross-functional partnerships, and prioritizing workforce strategies that balance automation with human ingenuity. The future of supply chain—and business growth—depends on it.

About the author:

Noha Tohamy is a distinguished research vice president in the CSCO Enablement team of Gartner’s Supply Chain Practice. She advises leaders on how to adopt digital and AI strategies to augment and automate decision-making.

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