How the Manhattan Active® Platform is Unleashing the Potential of GenAI

Generative AI (GenAI) and machine learning capabilities are progressing at a rapid rate in the SaaS world. According to McKinsey & Company insights, due to the recent trends in GenAI, “experts assess that technology could achieve human-level performance in some capabilities sooner than previously thought.”

Manhattan’s brain trust has been hard at work developing new capabilities baked within the Manhattan Active Platform to unleash the potential of GenAI for its customers. Here are a few ways Manhattan has invested in the emerging technology revolution driven by generative AI.

Leveraging Large Language Models (LLM) to Accelerate Efficiency, Insight, and Experience

Manhattan is leveraging Large Language Model (LLM) AI to drive unprecedented transformations in business efficiency, decision-making, and innovation, arming businesses with the tools needed to evolve with dynamic market changes. Incorporating GenAI technology within Manhattan Active® solutions enables organizations access to the latest and greatest AI software capabilities and benefits, including the ability to:

• Automate complex workflows- Free your workforce from laborious or time-consuming tasks by automating workflows with GenAI, enabling human resources to focus on higher-order decision-making and strategy.
• Uncover hidden insights- Unlock actionable patterns and reveal hidden trends within vast data sets, empowering businesses to make proactive, data-driven decisions at every operational level.
• Accelerate innovation- Stay ahead of the competition with increased agility, faster adaptation, and continuous improvement cycles.

These valuable application benefits will enable Manhattan Active users to stay ahead of the competitive curve in their respective industries.

“GenAI is rapidly changing the landscape of supply chain commerce, offering unprecedented opportunities for efficiency and optimization,” said Manhattan Product Management Director Ravi Maganti. “At Manhattan, we are committed to harnessing the power of LLMs and integrating them seamlessly within the Manhattan Active Platform. Our goal is to empower our customers with intelligent tools that automate tasks, provide actionable insights, and enable them to stay ahead in a dynamic market.”

GenAI Assistants Simplifying Warehouse Complexities

Applications within Manhattan Active solutions utilizing GenAI assistants improve user experiences, construct intelligent knowledge repositories, streamline system configurations, and enable unparalleled extensibility.

Warehouse operations consist of complex interconnected systems, processes, and other variables. Inventory levels fluctuate with increases in product demand during peaks. Inbound and outbound shipments are constantly moving in and out of distribution at various times throughout the day. Staff, equipment, and warehouse or distribution center space require not only to be allocated optimally but managed efficiently. Human warehouse managers and workers need to be seasoned with decades of experience to balance all tasks properly and profitably.

Manhattan Active’s GenAI Assistants can replicate this experience without the possibility of human error by leveraging LLMs combined with our API microservices, creating intelligent assistants that possess a comprehensive understanding of the entire warehouse operational network.

GenAI Assistant can analyze key variables and constraints in real time, providing

instantaneous insights and recommendations on opportunities for optimization to warehouse managers. The system continuously learns from historical data and adapts dynamically to changing conditions, ensuring that the warehouse always operates at peak efficiency.

The beneficial outcomes warehouse operations receive when implementing Manhattan’s GenAI Assistant include:

• Global Awareness- Get instantaneous conversational access to all aspects of warehouse activity, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual research.
• Rapid Diagnosis- Enables users to quickly identify potential issues and bottlenecks, enabling proactive mitigation and issue resolution.
• Accurate Solutions- Provides precise tailored guidance, recommending optimal actions for any situation.
• Fast Execution- Resolve issues and optimize processes independently and autonomously, reducing the need for technical support and streamlining operations.

“GenAI is poised to revolutionize supply chain and warehouse operations,” said Maganti. “By combining the power of LLMs with our deep domain expertise, we're enabling a future where warehouses operate with unprecedented efficiency, agility, and intelligence.”

Human-like Interactions With Contextual Conversations

Chatbot and user interactions are transformed with the integration of generative AI within Manhattan solutions thanks to intuitive conversational interfaces built on sophisticated LLMs. Traditional chatbot experiences are limited in their ability to understand the natural flow of conversation, which is frustrating from a user experience perspective. These poor customer experiences are due to inflexible flows, complex rules, and reliance on the configuration of predefined scripts and flows.

Manhattan’s AI-powered assistants, however, engage and understand user’s natural language conversational flow to deliver seamless guidance, insightful metric interpretation, and a highly personalized experience. As conversational interfaces continue to mature and progress, customers benefit from an exceptional level of immediate, actionable support that drives a higher return on their technology investment.

Intelligent Knowledgebases Enable Informed Decisions

Manhattan’s foundational LLM technology is being leveraged to construct dynamic, intelligent knowledgebases specifically tailored to user needs. These information resources offer comprehensive contextual insight, sophisticated problem-solving support, and continuously updated operational recommendations. This equips users with readily accessible augmented intelligence with beneficial capabilities that include improved strategic decision-making and optimized outcomes across multiple domains.

Simplified System Configuration Provides Enhanced Flexibility

Generative AI built within Manhattan Active solutions can transform how system configurations can be managed and changed. Manhattan’s solutions will be able to now understand contextual natural language requests and convert them into actionable configuration instructions offering customers a new paradigm. As a result, technical experience thresholds are reduced, making it easier for organizations to tailor systems to their evolving needs without long configuration cycles or reliance on specialized and more expensive skill sets.

Rapid System Extension Unveils a Path for Future Success

Combining advanced LLMs with Manhattan ProActive™ empowers Manhattan Active solutions with the extensibility capacity to attain unparalleled degrees of speed and accessibility. Gen AI assistance allows any developer to articulate functional extension requirements for Manhattan Active® solutions in plain language. The system then interprets the commands received and automatically generates the necessary code to extend the solution. This process is now more seamless than ever before by placing the power of customizing Manhattan Active® solutions into the hands of the user without ever having to learn the computer’s language, due to the computer’s ability to instead understand and learn the user’s language. 

Whatever the Future for GenAI Holds, Manhattan Will Be at the Forefront

Manhattan is committed to the continuous pursuit of improving and unlocking the transformative power GenAI is and will be capable of. We are dedicated to innovation, with roughly $1 Billion invested in R&D since 2010 and $127M alone invested in 2023, and we remain devoted to our ongoing strategy by continually investing in the research and development of GenAI use cases across all our solutions.

“At Manhattan, we are driven by a relentless pursuit of innovation,” said Maganti. “We believe in the transformative power of GenAI and are committed to remaining at the forefront of this technological revolution. Our ongoing investment in R&D ensures that our customers will continue to benefit from cutting-edge solutions that empower them to thrive in an increasingly complex and competitive world.”

Manhattan’s GenAI Offerings

Manhattan Assist

Manhattan Assist provides general GenAI assistance as a part of the Manhattan Active Platform across multiple personas, roles, and functions. This means users get the latest GenAI capabilities and enhancements automatically and quarterly without disruption and can leverage knowledgebase capabilities that provide rapid, contextual access to all product documentation, API structures, and more.

Manhattan Active® Maven - GenAI for Omnichannel Commerce

The Manhattan Active Platform now supports GenAI infrastructure in omnichannel customer service with Manhattan Active® Maven’s specialized GenAI assistance capabilities. This new product offering from Manhattan enables solution-level assistance for customer service associates that handles the first point of contact conversations with customers, sorts out the routine, and manages all the cleanup so that your human agents can focus on what they do best: being human.