Major manufacturers and transport companies including Maersk, Siemens, and Unilever are putting AI to work to advise on contract terms, hunt down suppliers on better shipping routes or with better terms, and spot ethical potholes, such as buying cotton from China’s Xinjiang region, where Uighur Muslims are allegedly enslaved.

AI also is helping companies comply with new laws in Germany and elsewhere that require businesses to monitor their suppliers’ environmental and human rights stewardship. Businesses also are deploying AI to watch for brewing geopolitical tensions that might roil supply lines in the future.

“Things have changed dramatically over the last year with the advent of generative AI,” Navneet Kapoor, Maersk’s chief technology officer, told the Financial Times.

His company invested $20 million last December in Pactum, an AI firm whose bot is guiding contract negotiations for Maersk, Walmart, and others. Siemens uses an AI called Scoutbee to compare suppliers or find weaknesses in its own supply chain.

Just 14 percent of supply-chain professionals are using AI, according to a survey of 55 companies by logistics firm Freightos. However, 96 percent are planning to adopt it, the survey found.