How AI divides opinion in supply chain finance industry

November 29, 2019

The use of AI in SCF has divided opinion at the last SCF Forum Europe with industry leaders unable to agree on whether it will live up to the hype surrounding its potential.

While some of the panelists saw AI as an “enabler” for the improving the use of supply chain finance, there were questions raised about the extent of its potential. Audience members were equally vocal about their concerns around the accuracy of AI and how long it might take to develop fully-AI enabled solutions.

Laurent Tabouelle, COO of software provider CODIX Group, was the voice of dissent on the panel, noting that AI should not be viewed as “one magical solution for everything.”

He explained that AI as a machine learning tool could be very reliable in helping companies decide – for example – if a buyer is a “good” or “bad” payer, but that notion of good or bad is created by a human having input information into the system which will take time to build up.

Laurent Tabouelle said developing certain AI-enhanced solutions would be a “slow process” and that “we are ages away from what we can do.”

He refers to AI SCF-related solutions currently being explored in the market as more of an “augmented decision-making” tool, rather than “pure AI”.

Read more: USSCMC