For most of the last decade, AI in the supply chain has behaved like a very fast analyst. It spotted patterns, flagged risks and forecast demand, then waited for a human to decide. That is changing.
DHL’s newly released Logistics Trend Radar 8.0, published on September 24, 2026, finds that AI is beginning to plan, coordinate and act across supply chains on its own, working alongside people rather than merely advising them. The eighth edition adds four new trends: Agentic AI, AI Commerce, Compute Economy and Humanoids.
“Until now, AI has helped people perform tasks more efficiently,” said Klaus Dohrmann, DHL’s VP of Innovation and Trend Research. “The next chapter is about action.”
For CIOs, that sentence marks a shift in the job. When software only recommends, a bad output is an inconvenience. When software acts, whether by rerouting a shipment, rebalancing inventory or reallocating transport capacity in real time, a bad output becomes an operational event.
From analytics to autonomy
The Radar draws a clear line between two trends. AI Analytics uncovers patterns, anticipates disruption and recommends actions at scale. Agentic AI goes further: it can autonomously plan, decide and act toward defined goals. DHL says the combination is creating more adaptive supply chains that can anticipate inventory shortages, reroute around disruptions and adjust capacity dynamically.
Independent research points the same way, with money following the hype. Gartner forecasts that supply chain management software with agentic AI will grow from $2 billion in 2025 to $53 billion by 2030, a five-year CAGR of 93.5%. It also expects that by 2030, 60% of enterprises using SCM software will have adopted agentic AI features, up from 5% in 2025. Gartner’s 2026 supply chain technology trends place agentic AI and physical AI among the top trends, alongside themes of specialisation and trust and governance.
IDC sees the same momentum at the budget level. It projects that agentic AI will exceed 26% of worldwide IT spending and reach $1.3 trillion in 2029. That makes agentic AI a line-item question for CIOs as well as an operations question.
The warning label on the hype
CIOs should read the forecasts alongside the cautions. Gartner has predicted that over 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027, citing escalating costs, unclear value or inadequate risk controls. Forrester has estimated that 25% of planned AI spend may be deferred into 2027 as enterprises demand to see ROI.
Taken together, these figures suggest the winners will not be the companies that deploy the most agents. They will be the ones that can show what each agent is worth and who is accountable when it errs.
Governance becomes part of the architecture
DHL’s report treats responsible AI as a business imperative. It highlights AI Ethics and Cybersecurity 2.0 as trends that help organisations balance innovation with governance, resilience and security. As AI systems take on demand forecasting, inventory planning and transport decisions, DHL says safeguards and human oversight become as important as the technology itself.
Analysts agree. Gartner’s guidance urges leaders to determine and deploy appropriate levels of human-in-the-loop for supply chain decisions, particularly in early deployments. Forrester predicts that half of enterprise ERP vendors will launch autonomous governance modules combining explainable AI with audit trails and real-time compliance monitoring. It has also warned that agentic AI could cause a public breach in 2026 that leads to employee dismissals.
In practice, this means CIOs need to settle three things early. The first is decision rights: which actions an agent may take alone, which need approval and which stay human-only. The second is the audit trail. If you cannot explain why an agent rerouted a shipment, you should not let it. The third is security, where agents should be treated as identities with permissions rather than as product features.
Logistics stays a people business
The most notable theme in the Radar may be that the technology story is also a workforce story. DHL stresses that logistics will remain a people business, even as wearable sensors, remote operations, collaborative robots and AI workplace assistants reshape hundreds of roles across frontline, technical and knowledge-based functions. By taking over repetitive tasks, these tools free employees for problem-solving, customer service and operational oversight, DHL says. Employee Belonging and the Augmented Workplace appear as new trends because employees increasingly work alongside AI.
DHL Group CHRO Thomas Ogilvie framed the future as a question of how well organisations combine human expertise with capable technology, rather than a contest between humans and AI.
The labour data shows why this matters. A Gartner survey of 509 supply chain leaders found that 55% expect agentic AI to reduce entry-level hiring needs. Gartner’s analysts stressed, however, that leaders are not treating AI as a blunt instrument for headcount reduction. The question for CIOs and CHROs is how the career ladder works if the bottom rungs are automated, and how they will build skills and confidence in the people who remain.
Sustainability and the compute question
The Radar confirms that sustainability remains a long-term priority. Decarbonisation, sustainable fuels, circularity and vehicle electrification all feature again. A new trend, Compute Economy, adds a twist for IT leaders: computing infrastructure and data-centre logistics are now strategic in their own right. The same AI that optimises a delivery network consumes energy, hardware and capacity that must themselves be sourced and moved.
What CIOs should do next
The sensible starting point is one governed workflow rather than a sweeping platform. Pick a high-volume, bounded decision such as inventory replenishment or carrier selection, and define success in money and service levels before deployment. Data readiness is the real gating factor, because agents amplify whatever data quality they inherit.
Human oversight should be explicit and measurable, with override rates and error costs tracked as KPIs. The workforce shift also needs planning now, since reskilling, role redesign and early-career pathways take longer to build than the technology takes to deploy. Finally, CIOs should press vendors on their governance roadmaps and ask how they log, explain and limit agent actions.
The bottom line
DHL’s Trend Radar and the analyst forecasts agree on direction: supply chains are becoming more autonomous, and the money is flowing. They also agree on the catch. The advantage will go to organisations that pair that autonomy with accountability, meaning clear decision rights, auditable actions and people equipped to work alongside the machines. AI is moving to action, as Dohrmann says.
The CIO’s job is to make sure someone has decided, in advance, what it is allowed to do.