The Barriers to AI Adoption in Supply Chains: Case of Moroccan Companies

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming one of the most important new technologies. Its adoption has tremendous potential for businesses. They can use it to increase profits, save costs in the supply chain, provide outstanding client service, and make their supply chains smarter. However, several companies find it difficult to fully realize all the advantages of this technology. This research aims to investigate the major barriers influencing the adoption of AI in Moroccan companies. In this paper, we used the qualitative approach to explore the main barriers to AI adoption in our country. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers in Moroccan companies, and data analysis was conducted using the IRAMUTEQ analysis software in addition to content analysis. Our results will highlight six barriers to AI adoption related to two contexts: the technological and the organizational ones. These barriers are: training and assistance, complexity, funding, managerial support, technical capability and company size. We used TOE (Technological-Organizational- Environmental) theory to cluster our findings into the two adoption dimensions.