C.H. Robinson launches AI agents to reduce global freight delays

C.H. Robinson has significantly expanded its artificial intelligence capabilities into the highly complex realm of global freight forwarding. By introducing a new fleet of AI agents, the logistics organisation is fundamentally altering how ocean shipping, air freight, and customs brokerage operate worldwide.

The implementation of this technology has yielded profound improvements in speed and efficiency, particularly for price quoting. Traditionally a labour-intensive task that could take up to three days for an ocean shipment or a full day for air cargo, the new AI system has compressed this timeline to a mere two to three minutes. To date, the technology has generated over 80,000 quotes for more than 3,600 customers.

For the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors, this acceleration is critical. The rapid transport of life-saving medicines and temperature-sensitive items relies heavily on air freight, where logistical delays can have severe patient outcomes. By expediting the booking process, C.H. Robinson’s systems help ensure that vital medical supplies are not left waiting on the tarmac.

“As we’ve brought our AI playbook to global forwarding, the benefits keep compounding,” said Mike Short, President of Global Forwarding. “Customers have information they need sooner. Data is more consistent. Processes are more predictable. When plans change or disruptions occur, customers can more quickly evaluate a new routing, mode of shipping, schedule or price. Not to mention speed-to-market is a real competitive advantage. The faster we get you a quote and handle your booking, the faster you get the ideal carrier and the ideal sailing or flight. For a vessel on the water 15 to 35 days, you don’t want to wait weeks for the next one. For an air shipment, life-saving medicines, perishable produce and critical automotive parts absolutely must arrive on time. Our Lean AI makes your supply chain a smarter, faster, better one.”

Freight forwarding is a notoriously complicated endeavour, requiring seamless coordination across multiple time zones, fluctuating terminal fees, and numerous logistical variables. To manage this, C.H. Robinson has deployed an interconnected system of specialised AI agents and subagents rather than relying on a single, monolithic algorithm.

“With our maturity in using AI to augment our talented experts, only C.H. Robinson is equipped to transform something as complicated as freight forwarding,” said Short. “Take a shipment out of Shanghai, for example. To price that, an AI agent first has to decipher which of the two ports in Shanghai the shipper means. One is a longer haul to get to and there’s a toll on the way, plus the 43 terminals charge different fees. The terminal fees at origin and destination change constantly. So another AI agent checks their websites every day and monitors emails for fee notices. That way people in two different time zones don’t have to call every terminal for every price quote.”

When a shipper fails to designate a specific port, the system's collaborative agents fill the informational gap automatically.

“A shipper may ask us to get product from their factory in Germany to a retailer in Chicago,” Short said. “One of our AI agents considers the pickup location and can suggest the best port based on our deep data – maybe Hamburg or Bremerhaven there in Germany, or the Netherlands given the more frequent sailings out of Rotterdam. It can also suggest the inland routing by either truck, rail or barge and the destination port. For freight needing to be consolidated, an AI agent chooses the best consolidation center.”

The rollout of this advanced pricing technology initially began in 2025 for less-than-container-load ocean freight for $ and Canada customers. It has since expanded to cover full-container ocean freight and air cargo across Mexico, Europe, Latin America, and Oceania. Currently undergoing pilot testing in China, the programme is slated for deployment in Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and Africa by the final quarter of 2026.

Additionally, ocean booking requests are now managed by AI agents that automatically incorporate customer-specific context, a module that launched in China in August and is expected to operate globally by early 2027.

“We have more work to do automating all the steps for booking, but this is already a major leap forward,” said Mike Neill, Chief Technology Officer. “Before agentic AI, we’d developed digital booking forms and data exchange setups with customers, but over the course of about 10 years achieved only about 5% automation for ocean and air booking requests. Why was that such a tough hill to climb? Primarily because you quote your customer, then it’s their suppliers booking with you. A customer might have 50 suppliers. With our agentic AI, all those booking requests no longer need to be handled manually.”

The integration of AI extends heavily into customs brokerage, mitigating the bureaucratic hurdles required for international shipments to clear $ Customs. Historically a manual undertaking exacerbated by modern trade agreements and shifting tariffs, the new system classifies and assigns dozens of document types to their respective shipments. It automatically extracts essential data, identifies missing paperwork, and initiates requests to procure it, effectively reducing processing time by 23% and allowing human brokers to concentrate on nuanced compliance tasks.

“When we built the first of our hundreds of proprietary AI agents in 2023, we were at the beginning of our company’s transformation,” said Arun Rajan, Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer. “We continue making disciplined choices about where we deploy Lean AI. Our AI agents continue to operate on 100 trillion data points and a context layer of customer-specific information that simply cannot be replicated elsewhere. While our 450 in-house software engineers and data scientists are still innovating in our trucking and 4PL businesses, now we’re using those advantages to widen our competitive moat in global forwarding.”