By Mark Hughes, VP Sales & Country Manager UK & Ireland, Infor
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a resurgence of noise about AI’s bigger, more abstract risks: debates about restraint, control, and where it’s all heading.
For warehousing, the issue is far less dramatic and the problems a lot more grounded and solvable.
Pick rates, travel distance, dock-to-stock time are all numbers you can physically check with a stopwatch and tape measure, to take away concrete findings, not just headlines and empty claims. That’s why the warehouse floor is one of the best places to judge the relative success of AI adoption and scaling, and whether the claims of the benefits of generic AI solutions hold up. And right now, a lot of UK operators aren’t clearing that bar.
With the current shortage of industrial space in the UK (which has already cost the nation around 140,000 jobs and £9.7bn in lost output[1]) getting more out of the warehouse floorspace available and the people on the floor is as important as ever. And it’s a far more realistic lever.
Infor’s Enterprise AI Adoption Impact Index, which surveyed more than 1,000 senior business leaders and AI decision-makers across the UK, US, Germany and France, found that in the UK while 75% of decision-makers believe they can manage AI implementation without disrupting operations[2], only 58% actually have anything live, full-scale or partially[3]. A good chunk of the rest are mid-pilot, paused after a failed pilot effort, or simply haven’t started on their AI journey at all. And over half (53%) still want a human in the loop for anything AI produces.
The real worry isn’t robots, it’s who’s holding the data.
According to the findings of our Index, the primary barriers for UK businesses are concerns about data security, sovereignty and getting their own houses in order:
- Concerns about data security and sovereignty are cited by 45% of respondents (nearly double anything else on the list).
- Return on investment sits at 24%, with a shortage of in-house skills at 20%.
- Meanwhile, only 61% trust their own data to be clean and well-governed enough for AI to rely on in the first place.
MHI and Deloitte’s 2026 Annual Industry Report[4] demonstrates similar findings. The share of supply chain leaders who now rate AI’s disruptive impact as significant or greater has jumped to 48%, up 25 points in a single year, with robotics and automation close behind at 39%. The obstacles they name – unclear use cases, cost, and talent shortages, also line up closely with what UK businesses told us directly.
UK businesses are right to be hesitant about handing this to generic tools. These “off-the-shelf” systems were never built to understand their business, its aisle layouts, safety rules, regulations or where the data needs to sit.
Meanwhile, spend on supply chain management with agentic AI built-in is forecast to grow from just under $2bn in 2025 to $53bn by 2030[5].
The question therefore is: how do we ensure it’s money well spent? Well, first none of this is about whether AI will take over. It’s a far narrower question: does the specific AI a business has deployed understand the specific floor it’s running on?
Often, it won’t.
Building for the job, not retrofitted
A platform modelled on how a warehouse already operates, rather than a generic layer retrofitted afterwards, will yield far better outcomes, with far more certainty and peace of mind for those on the floor itself. And that’s what Infor offers.
Infor was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems[6] this year, our eighth consecutive year, largely on tools built around exactly that:
- Pick-path optimisation that’s delivered up to 25% less travel distance and 15% faster picks
- AI that flags returns or replenishment issues before they become a problem rather than after.
- Governance at its core with every AI agent registered and auditable, so the human-in-the-loop principle above holds as automation scales rather than quietly disappearing.
Endries International, a US industrial fastener distributor, is one example of what that looks like in practice. Having outgrown its previous warehouse system, it implemented Infor’s WMS and saw a 40% increase in productivity, enough of a gain that it eliminated an entire shift without any drop in service levels.
That discipline needs to hold as volumes climb, not just in the quiet months. As we head into the final quarter of the year and into peak season, with UK shoppers due to spend another c.£27bn – volumes which run through warehouses up and down the country – UK businesses and their warehouses need to be ready.
As a business owner or decision maker, it is crucial that you, ask yourself: is the AI you’re running built for your floor? How much does its autonomy match your risk appetite, or is that a default setting?
Operators who can answer both properly now will be the ones hitting their numbers and seeing the benefits of adoption, robot takeover or not.
To see how we’re helping UK businesses close the gap and adopt market specific solutions, visit our customer stories at www.infor.com/customer-stories, or get in touch with our UK team.
[1] The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, March 2026, Link
[2] When asked Q1, “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement? My business has the capability to internally manage an AI implementation project without disrupting daily core operations”, 75% of UK respondents Net Agree, Infor AI Adoption Index, April 2026
[3] When asked Q7, “To what extent is your business moving to full-scale AI implementation over the next 12 months?”, 58% of UK respondents confirmed they are in full scale across many processes (16%), partial deployment across some processes (23%), full scale across specific processes only (6%), partial across specific processes only (13%), Infor AI Adoption Index, April 2026
[4] 2026 MHI Annual Industry Report, ‘Rewiring the Future: A Supply Chain Playbook for Innovation”, MHI and Deloitte, April 2026, Link
[5] Agentic AI in Procurement: Gartner, Bain, Unilever & Revolut, Procurement Magazine, August 2026, Link
[6] Gartner Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems, Gartner, April 2026, Link
Comments are closed.