1,000 AI Agents, Four Human Decisions: Who's Accountable for the Outcome? Artwork

Resilient Supply Chain — How Leaders Keep Business Moving

Resilient Supply Chain is for supply chain, operations, procurement and technology leaders who need practical ways to manage disruption, reduce risk and keep business moving.

First launched in 2019 as Digital Supply Chain and later known as Sustainable Supply Chain, the podcast continues today as Resilient Supply Chain, with the same extensive archive of more than 525 episodes covering supply chain technology, resilience, logistics, procurement and sustainability.

Each Monday, technology and sustainability analyst, keynote speaker and former SAP Global VP Tom Raftery speaks with the executives, operators, founders and innovators redesigning how goods, information and decisions move through global supply chains.

These are candid conversations about what works in practice—not polished PR narratives or vague predictions. Guests explain how they are responding to supplier failures, geopolitical shocks, volatile costs, capacity constraints, changing regulations and rising pressure to improve both performance and sustainability.

The podcast examines:
Faster planning and decision-making under uncertainty
Supplier risk, sourcing strategy and business continuity
AI, automation, visibility and operational intelligence
Warehousing, logistics and fulfilment performance
Scope 3 emissions, circularity and responsible sourcing
The systems, incentives and organisational changes needed to turn data into action

The central question is simple: what helps a supply chain withstand disruption, adapt quickly and continue serving the business?

New episodes are published every Monday at 7am CET. Resilient Supply Chain+ subscribers also receive bonus analysis, highlights and briefings on emerging industry trends.

Follow Resilient Supply Chain for practical lessons from the people solving real operational problems—and building supply chains that perform when conditions do not go to plan.

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Resilient Supply Chain — How Leaders Keep Business Moving

1,000 AI Agents, Four Human Decisions: Who's Accountable for the Outcome?

November 02, 2026 • Tom Raftery • Season 2 • Episode 147

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AI agents can keep operational work moving overnight. But in supply chains, automating a flawed process can accelerate mistakes just as quickly as it clears backlogs, while leaving accountability dangerously unclear.

I put that challenge to Elon Salfati, CEO of Salfati Group, who works with organisations adopting AI. We examine why promising deployments stumble over cross-team handovers, undocumented expertise and resistance too easily dismissed as fear of change. The consequences? Delayed decisions, repeated work and investments that fail to deliver operational improvements.

Elon describes an operating model where a thousand AI agents work overnight, leaving just four decisions for humans. We explore what that means for management, why experienced employees hold knowledge no system has captured, and how organisations can verify outcomes when agents start acting rather than merely advising.

Listen now to reconsider what your organisation should automate, where human judgement remains essential, and how to prevent faster execution from creating greater operational risk.

If disruption hit tomorrow, would you know where your supply chain was most exposed? In 15 minutes my free scorecard helps you assess 27 resilience statements, calculate your score, and turn the result into three priorities and a 30 day action plan. You can download the scorecard free at tomraftery.com/scorecard.

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Podcast supporters
I'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's generous Subscribers:

Alicia Farag
Kieran Ognev
Gary Lynch

And remember you too can become a Resilient Supply Chain+ subscriber - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent episodes like this one and give you access to bonus episodes of topical, timely supply chain resilience analysis.

🎤 Looking for a keynote speaker on supply chain resilience, AI, and sustainability?
I help leaders understand the forces reshaping global supply chains, from geopolitical disruption and climate risk to AI and real-time decision-making.

Download my Speaker Pack: https://tinyurl.com/spkrpck

Finally
If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to just send me a direct message on LinkedIn, or send me a message using this link.

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Thanks for listening.