IN Brief:
- C.H. Robinson reports more than 80,000 automated quotations for over 3,600 freight customers.
- Ocean booking agents entered service in China in August, with global availability targeted for early 2027.
- Automated US customs-document workflows have reduced time spent on covered tasks by 23%, according to C.H. Robinson.
C.H. Robinson has extended its artificial intelligence systems into ocean and air freight quotations, ocean booking requests and US customs documentation. The forwarder reports more than 80,000 automatically produced price quotations for over 3,600 customers and is introducing specialised agents that share the processing steps in more complicated international shipments.
The company calls its approach Lean AI, using automation for defined operational tasks rather than assigning an entire freight movement to a single model. An international quotation can require several separate calculations — origin and destination charges, terminal fees, inland transport, possible consolidation and available shipping services — before a customer can compare the total price with the transit options.
C.H. Robinson says its automated system now completes covered air cargo quotations in two to three minutes, compared with around a day previously, and ocean quotations in the same time instead of two to three days. Those are company-reported processing measures for specified workflows, not independently measured average times across the international freight market. The 80,000 figure counts quotations, not accepted bookings or delivered consignments.
Freight instructions can arrive without all the information needed to choose a routing. One agent may interpret a shipper’s description while others retrieve service or terminal charges, check inland connections and identify suitable consolidation points. In a quoted example involving Shanghai, the company described the difficulty of choosing between different ports and terminals whose access routes, tolls and handling charges vary. The resulting price still depends on the accuracy and freshness of those external inputs.
Another example covers goods travelling from a German factory to a Chicago retailer. Hamburg, Bremerhaven and Rotterdam could be considered as European gateways, with road, rail or barge movements to a terminal. The alternatives illustrate the routing decisions an AI-supported quotation may evaluate; they should not be mistaken for a newly announced C.H. Robinson service or a guarantee that every option will have available capacity.
The firm initially deployed AI quoting for less-than-container-load ocean freight in the United States and Canada during 2025. It has since extended the capability to full-container-load ocean shipments and air cargo, serving customers in Mexico, Europe, Latin America and Oceania. The technology is being piloted in China, with deployments in Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East and Africa expected during the fourth quarter of 2026.
Booking agents are less widely deployed than the pricing capability. They began processing requests in China in August 2026, with expansion across Asia planned during the final quarter and worldwide availability targeted for the first quarter of 2027. A separate agent adds the customer’s preferences and procedures to an incoming request before others process it. C.H. Robinson says its earlier digital forms and data exchanges automated only about 5% of ocean and air booking requests over roughly a decade.
A freight customer requesting a quotation is not always the party ultimately making the booking. A manufacturer or retailer may procure freight centrally while individual suppliers place shipments with the forwarder. Differences in product descriptions, dates, loading locations and customer-specific procedures can force manual reconciliation unless information from several participants is brought into a consistent workflow.
US customs operations provide a third application. Incoming material spanning more than four dozen document types is separated, identified and linked to individual shipments before data is extracted and missing paperwork requested. The process also generates subsequent information packs and invoices. C.H. Robinson reports that staff time devoted to the covered administration has fallen by 23%, while customs specialists retain validation and compliance work.
Customs automation does not transfer legal or regulatory responsibility from the importer or its representatives to a software agent. Product classification, origin, valuation, admissibility and other declarations still depend on accurate underlying records and applicable rules. Documents from carriers, suppliers and government bodies can also change as a shipment advances, making the detection of omissions or inconsistencies a continuing operational requirement.
Although automated quotations can shorten the period before a customer requests space on a vessel or aircraft, they cannot themselves create transport capacity or establish a customs clearance outcome. C.H. Robinson’s remaining rollout commitments concern broader availability of the booking agents in Asia by late 2026 and globally in early 2027; the company has not said that those future deployments are already operational.
