The next wave of logistics software is not just automating tasks — it is guiding decisions. AI workers are coming fast, and the forwarders who are ready have one thing in common: clean, complete rate data powering everything.
Gartner puts enterprise adoption of agentic AI in supply chain software at 5% today, rising to 60% by 2030. That is not a gradual shift, it is a step-change. And it will expose the gap between forwarders who built a robust data foundation and those who are still papering over the cracks with manual workarounds.
The efficiency gains from digitalization are already locked-in across most of the industry. AI is the next lever, and it will drive precious net margin. However, this can only be captured if the data underneath is solid. For ocean forwarders, that means rate data — structured, current, and covering every trade lane and cost you quote on.
AI bolted on as a separate tool will not hold up in operations. Plug AI into fragmented rate data and it misses options, quotes off stale figures, and sends customers answers that do not match what your team would quote. By enabling both AI and your teams with the same shared rate foundation, the story changes: quotes go out faster, fewer opportunities get missed, and the AI workflow holds up under real volume.
Most forwarders are still building
Research shows that only around one third of European forwarders have automated their core operational workflows. The majority still move work through email chains, spreadsheets, and PDFs. That caution is understandable. The problem is not the appetite for AI and its benefits, but the absence of a foundation reliable enough to run it on.
For ocean freight specifically, the complexity runs deep. Forwarders need a single source of truth which powers rate procurement, rate management, quoting, sales and customer support from one single place, not disconnected systems. The moment those functions draw from different data, inconsistencies creep in and trust erodes — from customers and from the team.
One multimodal source of truth
cargo.one began as the first e-booking platform for air freight in 2018, and today more than 30,000 users across 172 countries rely on the platform. Acquiring Cargofive brought ocean rates into the same foundation — with direct connections to top ten ocean carriers, covering contract, FAK, NAC, and spot rates across millions of trade lanes, with trucking, local charges, and agent rates layered on top.
For an ocean forwarder, this means quoting with live carrier data rather than whatever someone last updated in a spreadsheet. cargo.one’s AI worker for ocean quoting automates the repetitive mechanical work: pulling shipment details, retrieving rates, assembling responses. The result is a 68% reduction in quote turnaround time, at 89% accuracy from the start.
The model is straightforward. AI workers and quoting teams work from the same data, in the same workspace. AI applies intelligent logic and handles volume and repetition. People handle the work that actually needs a person: unusual routings, high-value accounts, anything that needs context or judgement. Every AI action is logged.
Powering AI workers with the best data foundation means tens of thousands of quotes can be generated every month. Eight in ten can go out without anyone touching them.
Quote time drops from around 15 minutes to under one minute.
For example, cargo.one’s AI workers can intelligently classify sales opportunities, maintain full conversational context from first inquiry to booking, and can move forward with smart conclusions. With hundreds of requests landing each day, that speed and accuracy is the difference between winning and losing business.
Trust in AI is earned in stages
No forwarder should hand full control to AI on day one. The sensible path starts in co-pilot mode, with drafted ocean quotes and support responses, for humans to review and approve. As the accuracy record builds, teams shift to supervised responses, then to fully automated workflows for routine requests. Getting there does not mean giving up control. It means having the confidence to run AI on your own data, in your own workspace.
The question among our customers is no longer whether to use AI. It is where to deploy it next. That shift happens once a forwarder sees what a solid rate foundation is making possible. The ocean forwarders who will be hardest to beat in the next five years will be those who invested in their rate foundation, and deployed AI on top to drive maximum value from it.
