AI in Logistics: Beyond the Buzzword With Ibrahim Ashqar From Lumi AI

Although generative AI first became popular several years ago, it’s still making waves as new tools are released and existing ones are improved. And people still have questions: what can AI be used for? How will it help my business? And what are the risks? 

Ibrahim Ashqar, CEO and co-founder of Lumi AI, joins Lori on this episode of Unboxing Logistics to answer these questions and more, explaining how to get the most out of AI when it comes to your logistics. 

Three types of AI 

What counts as AI? As Ibrahim explains, different people have different definitions. He finds it helpful to break AI into three levels, which vary in sophistication and can be used to solve different types of problems. 

• Statistical models. “There's your statistical models, your advanced analytics that add a tremendous amount of value for things like sorting inventory in your warehouse according to strategic pick locations. It's not really AI. But it's advanced analytics … and it's very valuable.”
• Narrow AI or machine learning. “[These] predictive models have been trained on a large corpus of data, and they do a very specific thing. Like, I'm going to predict how much demand we're going to see next week, and you can take this demand prediction to help inform labor planning decisions downstream.”
• Generative AI. “It can create content, it can summarize content, it can create images, and it can code. There's a really cool use case there. Logistics companies aren’t software companies—we don't code or anything like that. But [generative AI coding can be used] to extract data insights from your database.”

Embracing innovation

Adopting new technology can be scary. Businesses face concerns about cost, change management, and more, but they also fear being left behind if they don’t move fast. Ibrahim recommends embracing AI gradually. 

“The benefits are truly incredible. Don't be scared to embrace the change. … Be very strategic and deliberate with your implementation of AI. Pick easy use cases with high ROI. Start small, prove the value, and then use the excitement and momentum to scale across the organization.”

Freeing up data teams for high-value tasks

AI can help you access logistics data without overtaxing your data team. Ibrahim explains that data teams are often swamped with ad hoc data requests, spending up to 50% of their time on low-level tasks. With generative AI, non-data professionals can easily create code that gives them access to the information they need. 

Ibrahim also addresses a common concern: “Aren't you replacing data analysts? No, we're empowering them to work on the things that are actually driving value.”

Links

• Connect with Ibrahim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ibrahimashqar/ 
• Visit Lumi AI’s website: https://www.lumi-ai.com/