The Hackett Group, Inc., an enterprise AI transformation firm, today announced AI World Class Supply Chain benchmarks – new research that quantifies how AI is reshaping supply chain performance and reveals a growing gap between organizations redesigning supply chains around AI and those that ignore agentic automation.
The Hackett Group has introduced AI World Class Supply Chain benchmarks.
The research quantifies how AI is reshaping supply chain performance.
AI World Class modeling shows forecast error can be reduced by up to 52%.
Inventory carrying costs can be lowered by up to 41%, and obsolete inventory by up to 36%.
Expedited orders can decline by up to 59%, while on-time in-full performance rises into the high 90% range.
Plan-to-deliver process costs can decline by 12% to 17%, with staffing requirements down 15% to 24%.
The research indicates that the next phase of enterprise AI adoption will be defined by operational outcomes. As tariff exposure, demand volatility and margin pressure continue to intensify, supply chain leaders are increasingly expected to improve service reliability, strengthen resilience, improve working capital management and absorb disruption without proportional increases in resources.
“Most organizations still approach AI as a collection of planning tools and isolated use cases,” said Erin Blair, principal at The Hackett Group®. “Leading companies are using AI to rethink how their supply chains and teams operate. The result is not simply greater efficiency, but measurable improvements in working capital, service reliability, operating leverage and resilience.”
The new AI World Class Supply Chain benchmarks span critical plan-to-deliver processes, including planning, inventory management, manufacturing, warehousing, transportation, fulfillment and returns. They quantify where process-led AI transformation can create the greatest value and establish future-state performance standards for organizations pursuing AI-enabled transformation.
Plan-to-deliver provides one of the clearest examples of how AI creates compounding value. Better demand sensing, inventory optimization and execution decisions reinforce one another throughout the process, reducing complexity and improving service, cost, and working capital outcomes.
The results are significant. AI World Class modeling shows organizations can reduce forecast error by up to 52%, lower inventory carrying costs by up to 41% and reduce obsolete inventory by up to 36%. As inventory is positioned more accurately across the network, warehouse execution improves, shortening pick-to-ship cycle times by up to 38% and accelerating returns processing by up to 40%.
The impact becomes even more visible downstream. Expedited orders decline by up to 59%, while shipment-to-delivery cycle times improve by up to 25%. As disruption and recovery work are reduced throughout the network, on-time in-full performance rises into the high 90% range, strengthening both customer outcomes and operational resilience.
“Supply chain performance is no longer determined solely by automation or efficiency,” said Sid Shetty, senior manager at The Hackett Group®. “Organizations that redesign work around AI are changing how their supply chains operate. Better decisions earlier in the process reduce the work, cost and disruption the rest of the network has to absorb. That is where AI created a more sustainable competitive advantage.”
The findings also demonstrate the broader economic impact of AI-enabled supply chain transformation. AI World Class modeling shows plan-to-deliver process costs can decline by 12% to 17%, while staffing requirements can decrease by 15% to 24%, creating capacity for higher-value activities across the supply chain organization.
While plan-to-deliver provides a clear illustration of the opportunity, similar patterns emerge across the broader AI World Class benchmark portfolio. The benchmarks span 16 end-to-end enterprise processes and identify where process reinvention can unlock the greatest gains in cost, productivity, speed, quality and business performance. The most significant value is created when organizations redesign how work flows across an entire process enabled by AI rather than focusing on isolated automation opportunities.
The AI World Class benchmarks are grounded in more than 30 years of benchmark data, process intelligence and transformation experience drawn from leading global organizations, including 98% of the Dow Jones Global Titans, 97% of the Dow Jones Industrials and 90% of the Fortune 100. AI World Class extends The Hackett Group’s Digital World Class® methodology to model the next generation of performance achievable through AI-enabled execution.
The AI World Class Supply Chain benchmarks are available exclusively through The Hackett Group®. Download the AI World Class Supply Chain report to learn how process-led AI transformation is creating a growing supply chain performance gap and where organizations can capture the greatest value.
About The Hackett Group®
The Hackett Group, Inc. is an ROI-led, AI enterprise transformation firm that helps clients enable AI World Class performance. Its experts and engineers leverage Hackett AI platforms, including XT™, AIXelerator™, Hackett AI XPLR™, ZBrain® and XDA™, to accelerate and enhance the delivery of the company’s solutions and services.
