On September 24, Gartner predicted that by 2030, only 5% of organizations implementing some form of supply chain planning automation will make at least 10% of their planning decisions autonomously. The forecast draws on a survey of 243 senior leaders at organizations with at least $500 million in annual revenue, fielded November 11 through December 18, 2025. Of those surveyed, 83% had already spent at least $3 million on planning automation, including AI, and 51% had spent between $3 million and $10 million. Buse Aras, Director Analyst in Gartner's Supply Chain practice, said "spending millions on supply chain planning automation can expand technical capabilities, but investment alone does not create AI readiness," and that "leaders must establish the necessary decision, talent and technology foundations before scaling AI-enabled planning." Gartner's advice: start with the planning decision, establish the foundations each use case needs, and measure decision improvement rather than technology deployment.
For operators, this is a budgeting and sequencing signal more than a pessimistic one. Gartner expects progress to stay gradual because human oversight, data, and organizational readiness keep binding. That argues for picking one planning decision (a replenishment override, an exception triage queue), writing down who owns it and what the agent may do alone, and instrumenting the outcome before buying breadth. A 10% autonomous share across all decisions is a high bar, but a single well-scoped decision where an agent acts and a human audits can be live in weeks. Teams that start there will have the evidence and the data discipline that the other 95% are still trying to buy.