By Isabelle Bousquette and Belle Lin

Artificial intelligence was supposed to be a boon for helping companies navigate the impact of disruptions to their supply chains. But even this groundbreaking tech has its limits -- and wasn't ready for the far-reaching, on-and-off tariffs from President Trump.

Businesses contending with ongoing uncertainty want help from their supply-chain technology providers. In recent weeks, a number of vendors have rolled out AI features intended to gauge the impact of new tariffs. There is one problem: Tech can't forecast what Trump will do next.

The magnitude of President Trump's sweeping tariffs caught many businesses by surprise, said Jonathan Colehower, managing director of global operations and supply chain at UST. The company advises businesses on digital transformations and solving supply-chain challenges with technology.

That unpredictability limits how tech vendors can assist, Colehower said.

"We're looking at one individual's decision, so it becomes much more difficult to try and predict that one stakeholder," he said.

Still, technology can game out scenarios to help businesses with the many decisions they will have to make in the coming days and weeks amid economic brinkmanship between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In some cases, supply chains that took years to build will be upended.

"It's very hard for many companies out there to understand the impact," said Peter Swartz, chief science officer and co-founder at Altana, a supply-chain tech provider.

Altana gives its customers access to a dynamic digital twin of the global supply chain upon which buyers, suppliers, logistics providers and government agencies can communicate, interact and collaborate on areas like risk, compliance and insurance. In January, the company rolled out what it calls a Tariff Scenario Planner.

Companies can enter numbers on the latest tariffs or potential tariff scenarios, and gauge the impact on their supply chains. It shows them how much prices of various goods are likely to be affected across the supply-chain network.

What the tech can't provide is "some special insight" into dynamics between Trump and Xi, Swartz added.

Scenario planning isn't new for enterprises -- and can be done in an old-fashioned spreadsheet. But AI offers the advantage of quickly interpreting heaps of data to predict how different factors impact each other, said Noha Tohamy, distinguished vice president analyst at market research and information-technology consulting firm Gartner.

Supply-chain technology has also evolved alongside the greater complexity businesses face, tech vendors say. While businesses had been accustomed to making decisions at a high level, they now need to do so at the individual consumer and unit level, said Fred Laluyaux, chief executive and co-founder of Aera Technology, whose technology powers AI agents to help customers make decisions.

In a trade war, businesses face a massive increase in the number of decisions they have to make in a short period, Laluyaux said. They not only need to understand the impact of tariffs on their supply chains, but also must simulate how macroeconomic events play out on top of thousands of individual products across a wide network of suppliers and distributors.

Aera's platform helps companies decide, in various scenarios, how best to do things like ship a product, forecast customer demand and purchase raw materials, he said.

Flexport helps companies use AI to extract supply-chain data locked up in invoices, email attachments and spreadsheets, said Ryan Petersen, chief executive of the logistics platform. Those that can access that information, as well as data directly from supply-chain systems, can react to tariff surprises soon after they are published, he said.

"It's really about monitoring and being very quick to react," he said, "and being able to say, 'This is what happened, this is what it would mean for customers, this is how much you're getting hit, this is what it would've been if you were shipping from a different country,'" he said.

Even with AI, some businesses say technology won't help them avoid all tariff-induced financial pain.

Kent Yoshimura, chief executive and co-founder of energy-supplement company Neuro, manufactures heavily in North America but still sources ingredients like natural caffeine from countries in Asia, including China.

The economic impact of a trade war is essentially unavoidable for companies caught in the crosshairs. "It's really hard to directly attack tariffs," he said.

Write to Isabelle Bousquette at isabelle.bousquette@wsj.com and Belle Lin at belle.lin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 15, 2025 16:54 ET (20:54 GMT)

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