Davos 2026: Supply Chain Leaders See Hope in AI at a Time of Turmoil 

Trump’s presence at the World Economic Forum this week has changed the game. Instead of a stately diplomatic dance toward a better world, Davos feels like a child’s piñata party. Everyone takes turns whacking the status quo, while onlookers scramble to grab the sweets.

Fortunately, COOs’ traditional playbooks make more sense now than ever. Resilience, flexibility, and visibility may sound like overused buzzwords to supply chain ears, but everyone else is suddenly eager to hear all about it.

Optimism in Confusion

Overheard on the street (aka, the Promenade) early this week, a private equity executive quipped about “optimism in confusion” as their new motto. Perhaps it was gallows humor, but as a counter to the anxiety experienced by many attendees over Greenland and the EU’s “bazooka” option, the notion left me feeling upbeat. 

Why? Because across various roundtables, meetings, and conversations, it became clear that operations leaders aren’t especially freaked out about the political firestorm raging overhead. Many I spoke to are years into regionalized supply chain networks that derisk the tariff problem, connected with R&D colleagues on platforming strategies for better material supply optionality, and well-entrenched in multi-echelon inventory planning to limit out-of-stocks. 

AI Is the Solution… and the Problem 

Lost in the feverish politics but firm underfoot, operations leaders are calmly focused on scaling AI for better business outcomes. They see AI exposing huge productivity gains in existing workflows while creating new, simpler workflows using agentic systems. 20-40% reductions in human work for processes like inventory planning, supplier contract negotiations, and cost scenario modeling are increasingly common results from early deployments. 

The relevance of this quiet reality is that operations people see a different path to stability through a political crisis like NATO collapsing. They’ve been through serious disruptions before and surprised investors by managing deftly during the tariff rollercoaster of 2025. AI is already working and looks like a big help, no matter what happens after Davos. 

AI Enables Unprecedented Supply Chain Resilience

When we recently asked 100 COOs where they saw business continuity risks and how AI might help or hurt, they said material supply shortage isn’t much of a problem (fourth overall out of nine choices). They also confirmed by a ratio of 4:1 that they believe AI will help mitigate risks of supply disruption.

This may be because supply chains have not only survived, but thrived through Trump 1.0, Covid, the Ukraine War, and now a full year of Trump 2.0. Even at the peak of the pandemic, for example, in-stock performance in retail grocery rarely fell below 90%. People thought the world was ending, but Publix, Tesco, and CVS never shut down at all. Plus, some like Alibaba and Amazon, who already knew how to use AI, leveraged their visibility and flexibility to pivot and grow even faster. 

AI Sparks Unfamiliar Supply Chain Risks

COO concern over geopolitical instability is higher than I’ve ever seen it, ranking second overall. And yet our survey results identified cybersecurity breaches as the single most dangerous threat to business continuity. In fact, only two of the risk factors we tested saw COOs worrying that AI will make things worse – labor tension and geopolitical instability. 

The international rule of law may be collapsing, but operations leaders aren’t focused on political outcomes. They are looking around corners to scrutinize the robustness of tech foundations supporting AI’s ability to provide and improve the resilience, flexibility, and visibility we’ve come to expect.  

They are also acutely aware of the resentments of people threatened by an emerging world order dominated by AI. One COO shared his concerns about AI’s impact on employees and small businesses – a sober reminder about the danger of popular unrest. 

Is Space the Next Greenland? 

Another soundbite overheard on the street, “Is space the next Greenland?” hints that people feel everything is up for grabs. The tone at Davos this year is unsettled, but with an opportunistic buzz.   

Crazy times demand calm, realistic leadership. Operations leaders see the path, and traditional playbooks are still working.