NAW Framework Promotes Human-Centered AI Adoption

The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW), in partnership with the AI Applied Consortium, has released a governance framework designed to help wholesale distribution companies implement artificial intelligence (AI) while addressing governance, risk management, transparency, and workforce development.

The AI Governance Architecture provides guidance on responsible AI implementation across the wholesale distribution industry. According to NAW, the framework emphasizes using AI to support employees by developing new skills, improving decision-making, strengthening customer trust, and enhancing supply chain resilience, rather than replacing workers.

Eric Hoplin, president and CEO of NAW, said the framework is intended to help companies adopt AI while maintaining a focus on their workforce. “America's supply chain has always been defined by innovation, and AI is the next chapter in that story. By bringing together industry leaders to develop this governance architecture, we’re helping companies embrace AI with confidence while ensuring people remain at the center.”

NAW said the framework is intended to provide practical guidance for companies as they expand the use of artificial intelligence throughout their operations. It lists three priorities it believes legislators and regulators should follow as they mull AI policy:

• Establish a single federal standard for AI governance applicable to wholesale distribution that preempts a multi-state patchwork that would impose disproportionate costs on the small and mid-sized firms that anchor local economies.
• Recognize the workforce, community, and small-business dimensions of AI policy in this industry — including the empirical pattern that AI adopters in distribution are expanding workforce at higher rates than non-adopters when productivity gains are reinvested in customer-facing capability.
• Coordinate AI policy with existing sector-specific compliance regimes rather than building parallel regulatory structures that conflict with the obligations distributors already meet under existing legislation.

An executive summary of the AI Governance Architecture is available here.