In the week before “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” film debuted, I needed to make dozens of friendship bracelets to trade with fellow Swifties at the movie theatre, just as had been done during the ground-breaking tour by the same name. There was one problem though: I had never made a single friendship bracelet in my life, and I had no clue where to even begin.

If you’re not enveloped in everything Taylor Swift like I am, let me catch you up to speed. The global megastar wrapped the first U.S. leg of her record-breaking The Eras Tour this past summer, and she will have performed on five continents by the time it’s finished next year. The tour covers 17 years and 11 album eras and has grossed $780 million across 56 shows with 3 million fans in attendance.

And those 3 million fans, aka the Swifties, trade friendship bracelets that have era-specific lyrics and song titles along with colorful beads that match each album’s aesthetic. This is an integral experience for any fan, and I was not about to miss out on the fun.

So, I hopped online and blindly ordered some friendship bracelet-making kits and then took a field trip to the craft store to buy piles of random, unique beads that I hoped would somehow fit each era. This was the extent of my planning, and it was chaotic to say the least.

As I sat in my living room, which was completely turned into a crafting station, I aimlessly pored through piles of beads, bobbles and letters that had no order whatsoever. I spent two hours painstakingly making my first friendship bracelet — digging to find the right letters and haphazardly trying to put together a design that was Swift-worthy.

I failed miserably. I had wasted so much time, and my craft project looked like hot garbage that you could only hope had been made by a toddler who was just starting to develop their motor skills.

Frustrated and with beads scattered all around, I had an idea — could ChatGPT somehow help me? As a corporate communications guy, I use my generative AI buddy almost every day to get ideas for my writing, but I had never dreamt of using it for any planning purposes.

With nothing to lose, I started pumping in my source content and my prompts:

“Hey ChatGPT, I need your help making friendship bracelets for the Eras Tour movie. Each bracelet should feature a song title or lyrics and be a certain color aesthetic based on the album it’s featured. I’m going to give you a spreadsheet of famous song titles and lyrics, pictures of each album era so you get the vibe, and a count of how many letters and colored beads I have. Can you please plan my friendship bracelets, giving me a great aesthetic and using the supplies I have?”

I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Then, with a look of awe on my face, I watched as my trusty AI tool mapped out a beautiful plan for my craft project. Broken down by era, I had a list with a specific design for each friendship bracelet. All I had to do was execute the plan.

What I had done was use an AI assistant to help make a plan that saved me hours of time, maximized my resources, minimized waste, and designed some really cool friendship bracelets!

While supply chain management is much more complex than preparing for the Eras Tour film, the benefits of using a generative AI assistant ring true.

At Blue Yonder we understand the impact it can make to your day to take time consuming, complex tasks and simplify them into just a query and response within moments. With Blue Yonder Orchestrator embedded in our next-generation cognitive applications, we are transforming the user experience with guided decision-making and process automation at levels never-before seen in supply chain management so that you will have time to make friendship bracelets… or whatever you like to do.  

To quote the great Taylor Swift, “So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it.” But in supply chain management, you’re never On Your Own, Kid. With Blue Yonder Orchestrator as your co-crafter, each bead finds its perfect place.

Learn more about Blue Yonder Orchestrator in our “Generative AI at Blue Yonder” LinkedIn Live.