SOURCING EXCELLENCE
AI & TECHNOLOGY
Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game raises an old problem that feels increasingly current: sophisticated knowledge can drift away from lived reality.
AI makes that tension easier to see.
A model can compare scenarios, identify patterns and recommend an action. It does not live with the consequences.
A model might identify an 8% supplier-switch saving without knowing that a plant manager spent two years stabilizing the current process. It may recommend volume consolidation without understanding the exposure created by making one supplier critical across several business units.
The output can be analytically correct and still be decision-incomplete.
The risk with AI may not be that it knows too little. It may be that we mistake better analysis for a better decision.
AI can improve the analysis. It cannot own the decision.