'Tis the season… for making supply chain predictions. Given how volatile 2025 was, anyone willing to share their opinions about the coming year deserves an award for courage.

In this episode of Art of Supply, the last of 2025, Kelly Barner shares her curated list of picks for the most compelling 2026 supply chain predictions, not ranked in any particular order, and with no guarantees for how likely they are to come true.

These predictions suggest that:

• Localization, automation, and resilience will keep colliding with reality, not hype
• Decision-making will stay fast, data will stay late, and companies will learn to live with the gap
• Rising costs and tighter oversight (from freight to cyber risk to returns) will force uncomfortable tradeoffs
• Government influence on supply chains isn't fading, it's expanding in new and unexpected ways

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement