Different operators. Different playbooks.

Here’s where the conversation usually splits into three distinct groups: the operators who treat early adoption as a point of pride, the resistant crowd who upgrade only when something forces them to, and everyone else in the middle.

The bleeding edge.

For operators who want to stay at the front of the pack over the next 18 to 24 months, AI is the headline.

“You’re going to see more and more AI built directly into the tools and solutions these companies are already using,” Sterner said. “A worker can be in the aisle, have a question, ask the device, get an answer, and keep moving.”

Then there’s the question of what AI does with data at scale. Large warehouses already generate petabytes of data every day, and most of it just sits there, waiting for a tool fast enough to process it in real time.

“That’s all changing now,” Sterner said. “AI is letting companies pull insights out of that data in real time and actually act on it. The leaders are starting to move into decision automation. The system identifies products with high co-pick affinity, generates the re-slot workflow, assigns the task — and it just gets done. No one is sitting there reviewing recommendation lists and clicking approve on every line.”

Pick-path optimization is another area of interest for these leaders. AI can route workers through the warehouse in ways that reduce total steps per shift while keeping them clear of forklift traffic. That means less physical wear on people and more throughput per hour.

The holdouts.

On the other end of the spectrum sits the operator who would rather not hear the word “AI” at all. Vintage hardware. Paper-based workflows. An upgrade strategy that starts with “If it ain’t broke…”

Sterner’s recommendation for this group is simple and straightforward: dip a toe into a digital workflow, but don’t try to do too much at once.

“Just start by getting a mobile device into a worker’s hand,” he said. “Something with real horsepower — a strong chipset and plenty of memory, so it will last.”

“The Honeywell CT70 is a good example,” Sterner added. “You put it to work today, and three to five years from now you’re still in good shape. So it gives you a foundation to build on as you’re ready.”

Of course, some will stick to their old-school workflows anyway. But Sterner believes the cost of doing nothing is climbing fast.

“We’re reaching the point where you just can’t stay competitive,” he said. “Look at what’s happening in building materials and HVAC distribution right now — historically very manual, very paper-based operations. But the operators making tech investments are seeing huge competitive advantages. They’re able to streamline operations and lower costs while still earning better margins. And that means the gap just keeps growing every year for everybody else.”

The happy medium.

Here’s where most operators actually live. They’ve made real investments. They know technology is the future. They just want to know where their dollars will do the most work.

Sterner has clear advice on this one.

“If I were sitting somewhere in the middle, I’d really be exploring voice-guided technology,” he said. “I’ve seen the benefits firsthand. When workers are getting step-by-step instructions through their headset, the material keeps moving.”

According to Sterner, Honeywell’s voice-guided solutions can deliver up to 30% productivity improvement in picking and put-away applications, with ROI tending to materialize around the 12-month mark, depending on the size of the operation.

Voice can also handle workforce diversity in a way a lot of operators don’t realize. It supports dozens of different languages, so workers can be brought up to speed quickly regardless of communication barriers. The voice-prompt speed also adjusts as workers get more comfortable, so the technology scales with their proficiency.

“Investment in voice lets you drive real productivity and efficiency gains without having to totally overhaul your operation,” Sterner said. “Plus it offers advantages in the all-out battle for labor that everyone is fighting right now.”

Sterner knows what he’s talking about here. Honeywell has been investing in voice for close to three decades — expanding past item picking into put-away and replenishment tasks.

What’s next.

Whatever group you fall into, Sterner sees several technologies worth watching over the next few years.

Mobile dimensioning.

The ability to capture accurate dimensions of products and pallets from a mobile device — instead of wheeling everything to a fixed station — has been on the wish list for a long time. The payoff is real estate: a 250,000-square-foot facility can hold significantly more inventory when shelf sizes and slotting decisions are optimized for the actual dimensions of the products on hand. Applied to trailer loading, the same approach lowers freight costs and squeezes more product into every trip.

IoT tracking.

For high-value freight, temperature-sensitive shipments, or shock-sensitive products, real-time tracking devices capture multiple characteristics at once and feed the data back continuously. That reduces theft risk, helps ensure food and pharmaceutical products stay within acceptable conditions for the full trip, and protects margin on freight that’s expensive to lose.

Legacy system life extension.

A lot of operators are still running on AS/400-based platforms created in the 1980s. Joke all you want about green-screen terminals, but these platforms have proven nearly bulletproof. Still, there’s fair concern about whether this vintage tech has finally hit its ceiling in the age of AI. Then again, AI could actually give these old systems a shot in the arm.

“Operators are already figuring out how to pull data out of those legacy systems, process it externally with AI, generate insights, then feed the updates back in,” Sterner said. So as long as you can still get your data out and do something useful with it, those legacy platforms are less of a hard ceiling and more of a manageable constraint.