More than half of supply chain professionals are using generative AI, yet fewer than 1 in 10 organizations have scaled AI pilots into enterprise-wide operations. The gap between individual enthusiasm and enterprise-wide results defines the central challenge facing supply chain leaders today.
Joint research by GEP and the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business surveyed 180 senior supply chain executives and conducted in-depth interviews to understand why most AI initiatives stall, and what a small group of "Performance Elite" organizations are doing differently. These leaders have achieved remarkable outcomes, doubling productivity, reducing error rates, and compressing response times.
Their advantage is not better technology. It is operational discipline.
The study introduces the GEP Agentic Scaling Framework, a proprietary maturity matrix evaluating 10 critical vectors across three developmental horizons, and identifies six dimensions that consistently separate successful scalers from those stuck in "pilot purgatory." Among the findings:
- Organizations that scaled AI were far more likely to have a dedicated AI steering committee with formal governance, while one-third of those without such a structure had no systematic view of opportunities at all
- Data discipline is a decisive differentiator: scaled organizations are multiple times more likely to invest in automated data cleaning, real-time dashboards, and digital audit trails
- The hardest use cases to scale share a common root cause that is human, not technical
- Even the Performance Elite have yet to fully address stakeholder engagement and talent management, suggesting the next competitive advantage will come from a better-prepared workforce, not a better model
The report draws on case studies from Amazon and C.H. Robinson, academic research from Harvard Business School, and a practical framework for segmenting AI workflows by complexity and risk.
Download the full report to benchmark your organization against the Performance Elite and access a practical path from pilot to scale.