I’ve Seen the Booms. AI Is the Biggest One Yet—for Supply Chain Planning

I’m old enough that my first cell phone came in a shoulder bag. And I’ve lived through enough tech booms to know the difference between hype and real transformation. The PC revolution, the internet explosion, the dotcom and e-commerce wave—they all shifted the way business was done.

But what’s happening now with AI? This is bigger, especially in supply chain planning. And I don’t say that lightly.

I started my tech career at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), one of the dominant computing companies of its era. We were proud of our engineering, but we missed the PC wave. Our CEO, Ken Olsen, famously said:

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

That quote became a warning for an entire generation of tech leaders: when platform shifts happen, even giants can fall. DEC didn’t adapt fast enough. And it paid the price.

Ironically, DEC also launched AltaVista, the most advanced search engine of its time. I joined as Director of Product Marketing during the web’s first massive boom. For a time, AltaVista was the most popular search engine on the internet, pioneering image, audio, and video search before Google was on anyone’s radar.

But then the company lost focus. AltaVista was transformed into a bloated web portal, while Google stayed laser-focused on clean, fast, and relevant search. Google won. AltaVista faded and was eventually shut down in 2013. Another lesson: being early isn’t enough—you must keep evolving.

I later became VP of Marketing at Tradex, one of the first B2B marketplace platforms. We sold to Ariba for $5.6 billion during the height of the dot-com boom. The belief that digital platforms could transform how businesses forecast, transact, and plan wasn’t just a dream; it was reality in motion.

Then, I spent 12 years in the service supply chain software industry, leading marketing for Servigistics (now part of PTC) and Syncron. I saw how challenging it is to manage complexity across global networks, especially when you’re relying on outdated planning systems that are brittle, reactive, and blind to rapid change.

Through all of it, the booms and busts alike, I’ve learned something fundamental: every generation brings innovations that disrupt the status quo. Some companies cling to the comfort of what they know, even as the ground shifts beneath them. They delay, resist, and hope the storm will pass. Others recognize the moment for what it is. A turning point, and choose to lead. Time and again, the ones with the vision, courage, and discipline to embrace change are the ones who thrive.

Today, I’m a bit older and wiser, and for the past two years as Chief Marketing Officer at ketteQ, I’ve had a bird’s-eye view into something different: a revolution in supply chain planning powered by AI.

For decades, supply chains have relied on tools that assume the world is stable. Plans were built on fixed assumptions, linear forecasts, and batch processes. Disruptions had to be manually addressed long after the damage was done.

That model is broken. And AI is rewriting the playbook.

At ketteQ, we’re not just modernizing outdated systems, we’re reinventing how supply chains plan, sense, and respond using AI. At the center of this transformation is our agentic AI-powered PolymatiQ™ Solver.

PolymatiQ™ isn’t just smarter, it’s built to be autonomous, dynamic, and continuously evolving. It doesn’t stop at finding one optimal plan. It explores thousands of possible scenarios, identifies constraints, adjusts recommendations in real time, and learns as it goes.

This is not just a better forecast; it’s a new paradigm:  

• Planning that adapts in real time, not in cycles
• AI that thinks, learns, and acts across domains
• Systems that simulate and prepare for volatility before it hits

With PolymatiQ, companies can move from rigid, reactive processes to intelligent, proactive strategies. That’s why we say: Plan for every possibility.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, said:

"AI is going to change everything—bigger than cloud, mobile, or social."  

And Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, added:

“We’re seeing a new computing platform emerge—one that’s going to be as significant as the PC, the internet, and mobile put together.”

I’ve been there for all three. And I’ve never seen a moment more pivotal than this.

Because yes, I remember the bag phone. I remember DEC, AltaVista, and Ariba. I remember what happens when companies fail to evolve.  

This time, I’m all in because AI isn’t just the next boom. With ketteQ and PolymatiQ, it’s the supply chain breakthrough we’ve been waiting for. And I’m proud to be part of what comes next.

Don’t be an AltaVista or a DEC—when you can be a Google or a Tradex. It’s time to evolve.

Curious how it all works? Check out Unlocking the Future: How ketteQ Uses Agentic AI for Probabilistic Modeling in Supply Chain Planning to dive deeper into the technology behind PolymatiQ and why it’s redefining what’s possible in supply chain planning.