From Spreadsheets to Sentient Systems: The 2026 Supply Chain Planner

Blog / From Spreadsheets to Sentient Systems: The 2026 Supply Chain Planner

A Personal Reflection on a 30-Year Journey

I still remember the thrill of ordering my first book from Amazon back in 1999. It felt like magic. The website seemed to know what I wanted, and the book arrived faster than I could have imagined. That was my first glimpse into a customer-centric supply chain, a concept that would define my career. A year later, I joined Cisco and witnessed the explosive growth of the internet, an expansion that laid the literal groundwork for the transformations we are seeing today.

For the past three decades, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside supply chain leaders, from planners in the trenches to CXOs and board members. I’ve seen the evolution of this critical business function firsthand, a journey that has taken us from paper-based ledgers to the dawn of truly autonomous, AI-driven operations.

The Last 30 Years: A Planner’s Evolution

The history of modern supply chain planning can be broken down into three distinct eras:

Era	Time Period	Dominant Technology	Planner’s Primary Role
The Age of MRP & Spreadsheets	1990s – Early 2000s	Mainframes, early ERPs, and the mighty spreadsheet	The Data Gatherer. Planners spent their days manually collecting and inputting data, wrestling with disconnected systems.
The Rise of Advanced Planning Systems (APS)	Mid 2000s – Late 2010s	On-premise APS software (e.g., i2, Manugistics), maturing ERPs (SAP, Oracle).	The Analyst. With better tools, planners could start to analyze data, run basic forecasts, and perform what-if scenarios, though often in a slow, batch-oriented manner.
The Dawn of the Digital Twin & Control Tower	Late 2010s – Early 2020s	Cloud computing, early AI/ML models, data visualization tools.	The Firefighter. Planners gained more visibility through dashboards but were still largely reactive, using data to respond to disruptions rather than prevent them.

 

Throughout these shifts, one thing remained constant: the immense, often untapped potential locked away in a company’s data. Even with sophisticated software, a shocking 80% of enterprise planning is still managed on spreadsheets, creating massive inefficiencies. This is the challenge — and the opportunity — that has driven my work at Pluto7.

2026 and Beyond: The Age of AI Agents and the “Super Planner”

We are now on the cusp of the most significant transformation yet. The conversation is no longer about simply digitizing processes; it’s about creating an intelligent, autonomous supply chain. Here’s what the supply chain planning community will look like in 2026 and beyond:

From Creator to Curator: As Gartner and others have predicted, the role of the planner will fundamentally shift from creating forecasts to curating the outputs of AI. AI agents will handle the heavy lifting of data analysis and prediction, freeing up planners to focus on strategy and high-value exceptions.

The Rise of the “Super Planner”: I believe we are entering the era of the “Super Planner.” This individual is not a data entry clerk building pivot tables, but a strategic thinker who manages a team of AI agents with Pi Agent. They will use their experience and intuition to ask the right questions, validate AI-generated scenarios, and make the final, critical decisions.

Agentic AI as Co-intelligence: The future is agentic. AI agents, like Pluto7’s Pi Agent, will act as co-intelligence, providing real-time insights and automating complex workflows. These agents will connect to a multitude of data sources — from ERPs to social media trends — to provide a truly holistic view of the supply chain.

Democratization of Planning: AI will make sophisticated planning capabilities accessible to a much broader range of companies. The old model of buying expensive, one-size-fits-all software is being replaced by a more flexible, “build-your-own” approach, where companies can tailor AI solutions to their specific needs.

My Journey and the “Why” Behind Pluto7

My experiences at Cisco and in the years since have instilled in me a deep understanding of the gap between the potential of technology and the reality of its implementation. I’ve seen firsthand the frustration of planners struggling with inadequate tools and the immense pressure on executives to make critical decisions with incomplete information.

That’s why I founded Pluto7. Our mission is to bridge that gap. With solutions like our “Planning in a Box” Pi Agent, we’re not just selling software; we’re providing a pathway to a new way of working. We’re helping companies build a solid data foundation, leverage the power of AI, and empower their planners to become the strategic leaders their organizations so desperately need.

The journey of the last 30 years has been incredible, but the next five will be revolutionary. The supply chain planning community is on the verge of an AI-powered renaissance, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what we build together.

Read here why we bet all in on Google.