It is trite now to say that artificial intelligence (AI) has been the biggest economic story of the past five years. AI is expected to reduce many white-collar jobs, determine how many people will work, what they will work on, and how the services sector will operate. However, apart from the trade in intangibles, humans will continue to trade in physical products and use them in their personal, commercial, and work lives. Merchandise trade will continue to grow as standards of living rise across the world, especially in the developing and least developed countries. The main constraint, and rightly so, on the volume of goods trade, would be environmental concerns. Nevertheless, global merchandise trade flows, too, would be affected by the proliferation of the technology of AI.
Impact on supply chains: In manufacturing and distribution, AI is already making demand forecasting, inventory management, procurement, and supply management more agile. Complex estimations for these activities can be done in times that are orders of magnitude smaller than earlier. If the overall supply chain is to reap the benefits of such efficiency, the logistics of international trade and governance by agencies like Customs and port authorities will also have to be equally efficient. Such government agencies will need to have AI-enabled but human-supervised processes for faster and better decision-making.
