Latest
Deal Heidi cuts headcount by 18% and co‑founders leave after $475 million raiseDeal What buyers look for when they acquire an AI companyGlobal Which business processes can AI agents handle todayGlobal AI agents in accounting and finance teamsGlobal AI agents in retail and e-commerceUnited States Texas elects first Democratic governor in decades, putting AI data centre boom at riskGlobal OpenAI launches GPT‑6 Cyber model for defensive cybersecurity
United States edition
Friday, 6 November 2026
Infercline.
Advertise
The AI Opportunity Desk

AI agents in logistics and supply chains

Freight runs on emails, quotes and bookings, and agents now handle millions of those tasks. What logistics firms report, and how shippers of any size can use the same ideas.

The Infercline Desk · Friday, 6 November 2026 Sign in to save
aerial view of shipping container yard
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Logistics runs on a flood of small, repetitive messages. A customer emails for a price. A carrier confirms a pickup. A warehouse asks for a delivery slot. A shipment is delayed and three parties need to know. Much of this arrives as email in no fixed format and is typed into systems by hand. That makes logistics one of the sectors where AI agents have moved furthest from trial into daily work.

Some of the clearest published figures come from freight brokers. C.H. Robinson, one of the largest, said in April 2025 that its AI agents had performed over 3 million shipping tasks, including well over 1 million price quotes, 1 million orders and more than 1 million appointments. The company said loads were accepted in under 90 seconds for more than 5,200 customers, against up to four hours before, and reported a 30 per cent productivity increase across 2023 and 2024. Uber Freight said in May 2025 that it runs more than 30 AI agents across the shipment lifecycle, and that more than 1.6 billion US dollars in freight had moved through its AI system in the previous year. These are the companies' own figures.

The tasks behind those numbers are familiar to anyone in the trade. Quoting means reading a request, checking lanes, rates and capacity, and replying with a price. Order entry means turning an email or document into a booking in the transport system. Appointment setting means agreeing a time slot with a warehouse. Tracking means checking a shipment's status and telling the customer. Each is simple, frequent and slow by hand, and each can be checked.

For a shipper, wholesaler or manufacturer, the same ideas apply on a smaller scale. An agent can read supplier confirmations and update expected delivery dates. It can chase late shipments and flag the ones that will miss a customer deadline. It can match delivery notes to purchase orders. It can answer routine customer questions about where an order is. None of this needs a large technology team if your transport or order system already offers an agent, or connects to one.

The value is often in speed rather than headcount. A quote returned in minutes rather than hours can win the load. A delay spotted early can be fixed before a customer complains. A booking entered correctly the first time avoids a failed delivery. Measure these outcomes, not only the hours saved.

The risks are specific. Logistics is a target for payment fraud, including fake carriers and hijacked emails asking for payment to new bank accounts; the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported business email compromise losses of about 2.77 billion US dollars in 2024 across all sectors. An agent that reads outside emails and documents can also be misled by instructions hidden in them, a risk the OWASP Gen AI Security Project ranks first among AI application risks under the name prompt injection. Keep a person in charge of new carriers, changes to bank details and payments.

Mistakes in logistics also travel in the physical world. A wrong address, weight or hazardous goods code can mean a failed delivery, a fine or a safety incident. Agents should prepare bookings and flag uncertainties, and a person should check anything unusual: dangerous goods, high-value loads, cross-border shipments and customs documents.

Expect variety across the seven Infercline editions. Customs rules, transport regulation and data protection law differ by country, and an agent must follow the local rules for each shipment. Personal data in delivery records, such as names, addresses and phone numbers, falls under UK GDPR, South Africa's POPIA, Nigeria's Data Protection Act, Australia's Privacy Act, Singapore's PDPA, the UAE and Saudi data protection laws and US state laws. Gartner's June 2025 forecast that over 40 per cent of agentic AI projects would be cancelled by the end of 2027 is a reminder to start with one well-defined task and prove it before expanding.

Why it matters to your business

Logistics margins depend on speed, accuracy and keeping assets moving. Agents that answer quotes, enter bookings and track shipments faster can win business and cut costly errors, and the leading freight firms have published results at scale. Smaller shippers and carriers that keep handling every message by hand may find customers expect faster answers than they can give.

What to do on Monday

  1. Count how many quote requests, booking emails and tracking questions your team handles in a typical week.
  2. Pick the most frequent of these for a trial, starting with the one where an error is easiest to catch.
  3. Ask your transport management or order system vendor whether it offers an agent for that task.
  4. Set firm rules that new carriers, bank detail changes and payments always need a person's approval.
  5. Track response time and error rate before and after the trial, not only hours saved.

More on this topic: AI agents by industry

Sources