C.H. Robinson Expands AI Agents Across Freight Forwarding

C.H. Robinson is expanding AI-agent use across its global forwarding operations, applying the tools to freight-routing recommendations, quote preparation, ocean bookings and customs-brokerage tasks. The company says its pricing agents have handled more than 80,000 quotes for over 3,600 customers.

Key details

• Airfreight quotes that took about one day and ocean-freight quotes that took two to three days can now take two to three minutes, according to C.H. Robinson.
• The pricing agents, introduced for North American less-than-container-load shipments in 2025, now cover full-container-load shipments and airfreight in several regions.
• The company says AI and automation cut time spent on some U.S. customs-brokerage tasks by 23%, including document classification, data extraction and requests for missing paperwork.
• Ocean-booking agent deployment began in China in August. The company planned expansion across the rest of Asia in the fourth quarter, followed by a global rollout in the first quarter of 2027.
• CTO Mike Neill said earlier digital booking tools automated about 5% of ocean and air booking requests over roughly ten years. The company has not provided a target booking-automation rate for its AI agents.

C.H. Robinson says its pricing agents have delivered more than 80,000 quotes for over 3,600 customers.

Why it matters

Shorter quote turnaround can give freight customers pricing information sooner, while customs-brokerage automation can leave brokers more time for validation and compliance work. C.H. Robinson chief strategy and innovation officer Arun Rajan said the agents use 100 trillion data points and customer-specific context; he also cited 450 in-house software engineers and data scientists.

What happens next

C.H. Robinson planned to extend ocean-booking agents across the rest of Asia in the fourth quarter and launch a global rollout in the first quarter of 2027. No target automation percentage was announced.