Panel
- Cecilia Malmström, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
- Eva Maydell, Member, European Parliament; Rapporteur for the European Union’s AI Act
- Joshua P. Meltzer, Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development Program, Brookings Institution
Key points
- AI has the potential to optimize supply chains, analyze shipping routes, forecast demand, and enhance risk assessment and fraud detection.
- AI could potentially offer better market intelligence to help businesses make better-informed decisions and improve forecasting accuracy.
- AI could reduce barriers to trade in services and technical barriers of trade (TBT) and empower small and medium-sized enterprises (e.g., translation services)
- While trade in goods has peaked, services trade continues to grow substantially, even during COVID-19, with digital services and professional services being the main drivers. AI could further facilitate the expansion of service trade.
- AI is already affecting the nature of jobs and the services trade.
- Policymakers need to focus on creating an environment that supports the development and deployment of AI, particularly by balancing the need to provide regulatory guardrails and the need to encourage business innovation.
- AI regulation is currently fragmented worldwide. However, there is significant potential for establishing international standards and regulatory coherence, offering a common approach to regulating AI.
- Building more societal trust among the business community, policymakers, and civil society is necessary to address concerns about AI and related challenges.
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FASH455 Global Apparel & Textile Trade and Sourcing 
There is still so much we don’t know about AI yet, so it will be interesting to explore all the ways it will impact fashion supply chains in the future. I’m most excited to see how AI affects demand forecasting when it comes to consumers. Consumer Behavior was one of my favorite classes I’ve taken at UD, and I learned it’s not always easy to guess what the customer is thinking, especially in terms of what will be trending. AI algorithms will (hopefully) be able to analyze historical sales data, customer behavior, social media trends, and external factors to predict future demand more accurately. This can help fashion brands optimize production levels and reduce excess inventory, which is really cool.