Air cargo booking portal cargo.one is introducing five artificial intelligence (AI) tools that it believes will speed up freight forwarder workflow.
The five new tools will use AI to enhance quoting, multi-lane tender rate procurement, a single source for all rates, customer-specific pricing rules, and real-time quoting analytics.
“AI Powered Quoting” will provide complete customer quotes that consistently match the rate selections that humans prefer, while for high-value tenders a ”Tender Feeder” provides rate data downloads for multi-lane tenders in one export “turning what traditionally required multiple days and cross-functional coordination into minutes of work”.
Also, “Rate engine” will centralise management of buy rates, internal product rates, and sell rates from a single interface and “Sales Profiles” will provide automatic sell rate generation per customer or group, ”ensuring consistent pricing strategies across teams”.
Finally, “Quoting Insights” will provide real-time analytics on conversion rates, response times, and performance by customer or route.
The tech firm said its October release comes just as freight forwarders are in the midst of the busy peak season.
“Peak Season creates a universal challenge for freight forwarders: volumes spike, customers require faster responses, and operational inefficiencies become more costly. Traditional workflows, often paper-based, force teams to choose which opportunities to pursue, turn away business they do not have capacity for,” cargo.one said in a press release.
Christopher Ziller, operations manager, airfreight, at QCS-Quick Cargo Service, and a cargo.one user said: “cargo.one’s AI quotes are spot-on—we rarely need to make changes, saving significant time while maintaining control over customer communication.
”This frees our team for tasks with higher financial value, such as complex shipments that need deeper attention and, more importantly, business development.”
Moritz Claussen, founder and co-chief executive of cargo.one, added: “We continue to invest heavily in AI automation, but also on the foundation that enables AI to deliver value. The October Release reflects our philosophy: advanced tools are only as good as the data behind them. By building upon our industry-leading rate database, we deliver capabilities no one else can match.”
Earlier this year, the booking platform released a further series of upgrades based on AI that aimed to speed up the quoting process for freight forwarders.