Jane Edwards
Victor Foulk, vice president of emerging technologies at CGI Federal, said data integration and total asset visibility are fundamental factors that organizations should consider when deploying agentic artificial intelligence tools for citizen-centric supply chain ecosystems.
“Being able to integrate asset management systems, financial systems and logistics systems to approach this concept of total asset visibility is a key starting point,” Foulk said during a discussion for CGI’s From AI to ROI podcast with Andrew Donaher, VP at CGI Canada and lead for AI, data and analytics.
Foulk noted that having that visibility and data and combining them with workflows could lead to efficiencies for organizations.
“And when we apply these modern technologies, such as the agentic AI platforms that we develop, you can begin to automate these more complex processes that exceed the capabilities of robotic process automation, and you can begin to move faster and more reliably with various aspects such as acquisition and contracting,” he added.
According to Foulk, having a consolidated view of data could provide an organization with an opportunity to implement AI and support acquisition processes.
“The data is going to be centralized, and there is opportunity for agentic AI implementations to conduct acquisition processes, such as being able to monitor inventories at a particular agency’s location, consumables and being able to do things like automatically procure replenishments and distribute those to the agencies,” he added.
Maintaining Human Oversight in Responsible AI Implementation
During his conversation with Donaher, Foulk cited the importance of approval authority structures and human in the loop to help ensure the responsible implementation of AI in supply chains.
“And when you’re implementing these systems, you can apply a significant amount of automation, but at the right points. You really do need to have a human that has the decision-making authority to accept an outcome that could potentially have an impact on a consumer or a citizen,” Foulk stated.
“I think that that human in and human on the loop type of governance model is still going to be critical as these technologies continue to infiltrate the supply chain, if you will,” the CGI Federal executive added.
