Textile recyclers focus AI adoption on repetitive admin tasks

By James Calloway

At SMART’s 2026 Montréal Conference, Ardery of Applied Industrials identified three repetitive administrative workflows—invoice processing, order entry and customer-service communication—as practical starting points for artificial intelligence (AI) adoption among textile recyclers.

Ardery titled his presentation “SMART AI Adoption: Front- and Back-Office Automation.” It covered automated workflows for textile recyclers, processors, exporters and other businesses in the secondary-materials supply chain—the collection, processing, reuse and recycling of textiles and other materials—and focused on where software could remove repeated manual work from existing processes.

Ardery ran a live demonstration of AI carrying out tasks relevant to a SMART member business. SMART said the demonstration was intended to show how a company could introduce automation into established processes rather than treating AI as a theoretical technology.

The account named neither the member company nor a deployment count, software price, staff-reduction target or implementation date, so it established neither a completed rollout nor a quantified return.

Where can AI reduce manual work?

Ardery said businesses could use AI to handle customer enquiries and communications, including across international supply chains. He also described three administrative applications:

• matching invoices;
• reconciling financial documentation; and
• processing orders while limiting repeated data input.

Together, those examples cover customer-facing communication and back-office financial administration, matching the presentation’s front- and back-office framing. The stated aim is to reduce overheads and free staff from time-consuming administrative tasks. SMART framed the topic as relevant to used-textile and secondary-materials companies operating amid higher costs, changing regulations and complex international supply chains.

How should companies prioritise automation?

SMART said the session addressed how companies could decide which processes to prioritise before investing in automation. For recyclers, processors and exporters, SMART’s sequence puts workflow selection ahead of purchasing: assess recurring invoice, order, enquiry and documentation tasks before committing capital.

The session did not name a product, implementation timetable or purchasing threshold. Applied Industrials, which supplies workflow-automation services (systems for automating repeatable business tasks) to industrial businesses, presented the session, while the live example drew on tasks relevant to a SMART member business.

Ardery’s career adds applied-technology context. Before joining Applied Industrials, he held strategy and operations roles at Google, including work involving Google Fiber, Google Cloud and applied AI solutions within Google’s Trust & Safety division. That background spans infrastructure and applied AI, but the conference account did not tie it directly to the demonstrated workflow’s performance.

What does the regulatory backdrop change?

SMART connected the session to the operating conditions facing used-textile and secondary-materials businesses: higher costs, changing regulations and complex international supply chains. The wider conference programme also considered operational resilience and the evolving market for textile reuse and recycling.

Founded in 1932, SMART represents firms engaged in collecting, processing, reusing and recycling textiles and other secondary materials. It provides members with education, networking opportunities, advocacy and industry collaboration, while promoting the environmental, economic and social benefits of textile reuse and recycling.

For compliance teams, those broad association benefits do not establish that a particular operation meets a legal requirement. The session named no specific regulation, law or certification standard, so any sustainability or compliance claim tied to automation needs a separate documentary basis.

For sourcing teams evaluating workflow tools, the decision is to select one repetitive administrative process, test it inside the current operation and compare measured overhead and staff time before scaling. Compliance should separately require the applicable legal or certification reference for any environmental claim.

The 2026 Montréal session supplied no such standard; its near-term proposition is administrative efficiency across textile collection, processing, reuse and recycling operations.