AI-generated
Freight forwarders must tackle unbilled charges, manual rework, and unreliable data before expecting AI to protect their margins, according to Metro Shipping and Portcast.
Speaking on The Loadstar Podcast, Ian Powell, tech and solutions director at Metro, said profitability could be eroded by incorrect buy and sell rates, costs not passed on to customers, and repeated administrative work.
“If we’re constantly reworking activity, if we’re raising credits against jobs, re-invoicing jobs, that’s not optimal for us from an operating cost point of view,” he said.
Emma Crumpton, enterprise solutions director at freight intelligence platform Portcast, highlighted detention and demurrage as a particularly complex source of margin erosion.
Different free-time allowances, charging milestones, and contractual terms make managing charges difficult at scale. Forwarders may also absorb costs to protect customer relationships.
“When I think about detention and demurrage, it’s a complexity issue,” she said.
Technology could help identify approaching free-time deadlines and ensure charges were correctly recorded and billed. But both guests stressed that automation depended on reliable data and understanding the task.
Mr Powell said Metro’s adoption of airfreight tracking technology included a three-month pilot to integrate systems and resolve problems. Forwarders should identify the root causes of losses, with some problems addressable through process changes.
“You don’t need to apply AI for the sake of it,” added Ms Crumpton.
That echoed Australian forwarder Neolink’s experience. In an earlier interview with The Loadstar, Sean Crook said around half its shipment workflow incorporated automation.
“Automation, to be honest, has probably been even bigger for us than AI,” he said.
Mr Crook said Neolink’s staff were handling 80% to 90% more shipment volume than three years earlier, without an increase in staff numbers. He attributed the gains to both technology and a business model that gives customers a single contact responsible for the relationship from start to finish, reducing departmental handovers.
Its approach also relies on obtaining purchase-order information early enough to plan shipments, rather than waiting until goods are ready. Mr Crook said receiving orders two or more weeks in advance helped the forwarder make earlier bookings and choose services suited to customers’ actual inventory requirements, avoiding unnecessary premiums for speed they did not need.
Meanwhile, The Loadstar’s State of AI in Supply Chain 2026 report found 48.7% of respondents cited integration with existing systems as a major barrier to scaling AI; while 53.8% identified insufficient in-house AI expertise and change-management capability.
Looking ahead, the podcast guests saw opportunities to turn shipment data into practical insights, while retaining human oversight of decisions affecting customers and profitability.
Watch the podcast here:
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