C.H. Robinson announced that it has automated transactions that many shippers still conduct by email. It breaks a long-standing barrier to automation and gives shippers who use email the same speed-to market and cost savings as shippers who are more digitally connected. Using artificial intelligence, C.H. Robinson?s new technology classifies incoming email, reads it and replicates the steps a person would take to fulfill a customer?s request.

For example, shippers often still choose to send an email asking for a price quote rather than log into a digital platform. On an average business day, the global logistics company receives over 11,000 emails from customers and carriers requesting pricing on truckload freight. While the technology is replying to 2,000 customer quote requests a day, it opens the door to automating other transactions shippers and carriers choose to do by email.

The large language model (LLM) the technology uses can be trained to identify an email about a load tender, a pickup appointment or a shipment tracking update. For spot quotes, C.H. Robinson has already trained the model to differentiate between a quote request for truckload, less-than-truckload (LTL), intermodal or air freight. So far, 2,268 of C.H. Robinson?s truckload customers are getting the benefits of automated email quotes.

The faster a shipper gets a price quote and secures a carrier to pick up their freight, the less likely they?ll need to pay a premium. Speed matters in the spot market because most carriers are regional and only so many are working a given shipping lane on a given day. C.H. Robinson developers are now working on applying the technology to LTL price requests, which will be especially valuable to the company?s portfolio of small-business customers that rely on email.

A pilot using AI for price requests on expedited freight is also under way, with automotive customers that ship parts critical to just-in-time manufacturing.