Customaite CCO Says AI Can Cut Customs Declaration Preparation to Minutes
Customaite chief commercial officer Wim Van Emelen says AI can help prepare air freight customs declarations from varied shipment documents, with customs professionals reviewing flagged cases.
FlyMarshall Newsroom1 min read
Photo: Air Cargo Week
Wim Van Emelen, Customaite’s chief commercial officer, told Air Cargo Week that AI can extract and standardize shipment information from varied documents, including invoices and air waybills. He said the systems can flag conflicting details for customs professionals to review rather than infer uncertain information.
Key details
According to Air Cargo Week: - Conventional automation works best with structured inputs such as fixed templates and EDI messages. - AI systems can identify discrepancies between shipment documents, including differences between an invoice and an air waybill. - Van Emelen said declarants should retain responsibility for reviewing exceptions and signing off on declarations.
Van Emelen says AI can reduce customs declaration preparation from hours to minutes in some cases.
Why it matters
Air freight customs declarations draw on information spread across documents that can arrive in different formats. Van Emelen’s proposed approach would route routine shipments through automated processing and direct cases with missing or conflicting information to specialists. He also identified data-sharing concerns among cargo participants, including questions about who can access and use commercial information.
What happens next
The material gives no announced implementation date or further timeline.
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