Flexport Unveils Extensive AI-Powered Supply Chain Management Suite

Supply chain tech specialist Flexport makes AI push

This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. The highlight of the release is Flexport Intelligence, which allows businesses to ask questions in natural language and receive immediate insights about their supply chain performance. Flexport customers can use this AI-powered tool to build reports and create dashboards with no technical skills required, making it extremely easy for operations managers to take control of their global supply chains. Flexport powers your supply chain from factory floor to customer door - making it easy for you to ship anywhere, sell everywhere, and grow faster. Another major announcement within the release is Flexport Control Tower, which allows businesses to use Flexport's supply chain technology even for shipments where another carrier or forwarder is contracted to move the freight. "By launching these powerful new AI-driven supply chain products to thousands of companies around the world, Flexport has immediately become the largest provider of AI tools for global supply chains," said Ryan Petersen. "While many startups are emerging to provide AI tools for logistics, they lack the data required to train the AI models and struggle to sign up customers to use their technology. Our scale as one of the largest logistics providers in the world gives us huge advantages in both creating the technology and getting it into the hands of businesses operating in the real world." Flexport will build the smartest supply chains in the world. Flexport is uniquely positioned to harness AI's full potential, combining proprietary data, enterprise-scale operations, and AI-ready tech platforms to make new innovations easily accessible to customers. "Flexport has been leveraging AI for years, but with the explosion of large language models and new open-source tech, we're able to innovate faster than ever before," said Petersen. "AI is incorporated throughout the new products and features you'll see today. Our vision is to make global commerce as simple and reliable as flipping a light switch, and today's technology release is the clearest sign that we're well on our way to bringing that to life." Flexport Intelligence consolidates fragmented data into easily accessible, actionable insights. Flexport Intelligence allows businesses to ask complex logistics questions in simple terms and receive instant answers and interactive reports. The business is also enhancing Flexport Fulfillment's AI Demand Planning and Inventory Placement solution. Using advanced AI models, Flexport can process a multitude of client and industry data points to optimize inventory distribution across the Flexport network, ensuring we allocate the right levels of inventory as close to consumer demand as possible. The company is also expanding its use of AI Voice Agents, deploying them to work with carriers to improve quality and efficiency in its behind-the-scenes operations. Empower Customers to Manage Supply Chains On-Demand Flexport Control Tower is pushing to break down silos and give businesses real-time visibility and control over their entire logistics network, even on freight not managed by Flexport. The technology provided end-to-end visibility across the entire supply chain from order creation to final delivery. "Early adopters of our Control Tower saw freight cost savings of 10% on average," said Ted Boeglin, VP of North America. "Now, we're expanding our order management, allocation management, and third-party booking management capabilities to include carrier and supplier scorecards. Control Tower gives companies access to our powerful tools regardless of which company they contract to move their air and ocean freight." Flexport is also launching the industry's first real-time pricing engine for all-in, door-to-door and ocean freight services. Clients can instantly search, compare, and book freight across multiple modes, reducing wait times for quotes from hours to seconds. The company is also enhancing its supply chain messaging product, making it seamless for clients to communicate across their supply chain teams in one secure location. The Flexport Platform has also made major upgrades to its visibility and notification features that include fail-safe mechanisms to detect delays, more accurately predict delivery schedules, and improve shipment tracking. Transform Logistics from a Cost Center to a Growth Engine Flexport is also launching dropshipping, an e-commerce fulfillment solution that lets brands sell across 50+ major retailer websites. In addition, Flexport now makes it easier for merchants to sell globally with its new international parcel shipping offering. Flexport is now integrated with Managed Markets on Shopify, and Passport, to simplify global expansion and provide integrated customs, transparent pricing, and reliable delivery for parcel shipments to 200+ countries around the world. Internal Technology to Deliver the Highest Quality and Best Value for Clients In this release, Flexport is sharing an inside look at the powerful technology that enables its operations teams to provide unmatched quality, service, and lower costs for customers. From route optimization and workflow automation to customs compliance tools, the company is sharing a look under the hood at how it builds technology to coordinate complexity and simplify the world of global logistics. "Flexport's technology isn't just about automation -- it's about augmentation," said Sanne Manders, President of Flexport. "Our tools free up human ingenuity to tackle challenges AI alone can't solve, delivering the highest quality service at the best value." Going forward, Flexport will introduce its new technology developments through a semi-annual product release cycle, with the next being in late summer. These releases give Flexport an opportunity to showcase the technology investments the company is making to bring to life its vision of a future where global commerce is so easy there will be more of it.

Exclusive: Flexport releases onslaught of AI tools in a move inspired by 'Founder Mode' | TechCrunch

Freight forwarding and logistics company Flexport is rolling out a suite of new products and features, many of which use AI, in what the company says will be the first in a series of semi-annual announcements of this kind. If that sounds similar to Airbnb's approach to seasonal product announcements, that's because it was the inspiration for Flexport's new approach. "Brian Chesky told me to do it," Flexport founder Ryan Petersen said in an interview, referring to Airbnb's CEO. "He gave this great talk that Paul Graham wrote an essay about, called 'Founder Mode,' I was there that day, and he gave some great advice." The next product release will come in "late summer," according to Flexport. Petersen told TechCrunch that moving to a twice-a-year "release" cadence offers two big benefits. One, he said, is "there's nothing like the power of a deadline." The other is more about marketing. "We've developed a lot of great technology over the years, but it kind of comes out incrementally. There's not a lot of fanfare, and buzz, and opportunity to tell the story in ways that customers can see what you've done, what you've built," Petersen told TechCrunch. Flexport says it is launching more than 20 different products on Monday, many of which it was already using internally, all powered by a combination of AI from OpenAI, Anthropic, and AWS. The big product promotion comes as Petersen completed his first full year back as Flexport's CEO after firing former Amazon executive Dave Clark in late 2023 in a bid to "get [Flexport's] house in order." Among the new products is Flexport Intelligence, which lets businesses get information about their shipments using natural language prompts. Another, called Control Tower, will give customers "real-time visibility and control over their entire logistics network, even on freight not managed by Flexport," according to the company. Previously, these were things that Flexport staff did for its customers. Leaning on AI to perform these tasks and, in essence, mediate that relationship is a big change for the company - especially because one of the reasons Petersen fired Clark was because he felt the company had devalued its customer relationships. "This is something we're really conscious about. I'm still a huge believer in 'people first,'" Petersen said. He said the new products will offer "the best of both worlds" because businesses will still have the ability to call a Flexport team member - ideally, someone who knows them well - and get help if they need or prefer it that way. To that end, Petersen said he expects embracing AI will help Flexport grow its ranks, not replace workers. "I think that the company - and I think it's going to be us - but the company that does the best job of automating this work will not have less workers. You'll have more because you're going to grow so fast. If you're cheaper than other people, you're going to need more people than ever to do service, sales, consulting, technology, development, et cetera," he said. Another effort Flexport announced Monday is the inclusion of AI-powered voice agents in some of its own workflows. Petersen stressed that Flexport is cautiously introducing this capability. Right now the company is testing this with the truckers and warehouses that use its logistics platform. The AI voice agent calls drivers to tell them there are loads available to be picked up in their area and calls warehouses to verify basic details like hours of operation. Petersen said this helps with these simple conversations but that Flexport is still closing out these transactions through the regular workflow on its platform. He said he's "hesitant" to rush to include voice agents in other parts of Flexport's business until the capability and reliability improve. "My standard quality bar for making these things customer-facing is really high," he said. "I think there is a future where customers will be happy talking to an AI if it's really good at answering their question." That doesn't mean Petersen plans to move slowly with AI overall. In fact, he said he loves the speed at which Flexport has been able to experiment. "Our teams can look at any place of [customer] pain and find some process that can be done better by an LLM or other form of machine learning, and just do it. And the next day, it's live, it's being used by thousands of companies without having to go sign enterprise contracts or beg people," he said.