At C.H. Robinson, Artificial Intelligence Has Now Performed Over 3 Million Shipping Tasks

Rhea-AI Summary

C.H. Robinson has achieved a significant milestone by performing over 3 million shipping tasks using its fleet of generative AI agents. The company's proprietary tech tools have automated various aspects of shipment lifecycle, reducing speed-to-market from hours to seconds.

Key achievements include:

• Over 1 million price quotes delivered by AI
• 1 million orders processed by AI in March
• 5,200+ customers receiving load acceptance in under 90 seconds
• 30% monthly increase in LTL quotes delivered by AI

The company has expanded its AI capabilities to include price quotes, order processing, trucking capacity acquisition, appointment setting, and load tracking. A new AI agent launched in January 2025 processes carrier capacity emails, with February showing a nearly 10x increase in truck uploads. The implementation of generative AI contributed to a 30% productivity increase across 2023 and 2024.

Positive

• Achieved 30% productivity increase across 2023-2024 through AI implementation
• Reduced load acceptance time from 4 hours to under 90 seconds
• 10x increase in truck system uploads through AI automation
• 30% monthly growth in LTL quotes processing
• Lowered operational costs while improving service quality

Negative

• None.

Insights

Supply Chain Technology Analyst

C.H. Robinson's achievement of 3 million automated shipping tasks represents one of the most extensive real-world applications of generative AI in logistics to date. The operational impact is substantial - reducing task completion from hours to seconds across quote generation, order processing, and capacity management.

What's particularly notable is the progression from isolated AI experiments to an integrated suite of agents handling the complete shipment lifecycle. The dramatic reduction in processing time - from 4 hours to 90 seconds for load acceptance - creates a measurable competitive advantage in an industry where speed directly correlates with carrier availability and pricing leverage.

Their expansion from truckload to LTL automation is strategically significant. While truckload logistics has seen considerable technological investment industry-wide, LTL automation has lagged due to its complexity. C.H. Robinson's monthly 30% jump in LTL quotes delivered by AI demonstrates they're solving a particularly difficult logistics challenge.

The technology is creating a powerful network effect. As more carriers have their capacity automatically uploaded (10x increase in February alone), this improves load-matching efficiency, attracting more carriers and creating a virtuous cycle. The system becomes more valuable as participation increases, establishing a defensive moat against competitors.

Most logistics companies merely talk about AI potential or run pilots. C.H. Robinson has moved beyond experimentation to large-scale implementation across 5,200+ customers, turning what was industry buzzword into measurable productivity gains.

Financial Analyst

The 30% productivity increase across 2023-2024 that C.H. Robinson attributes partly to generative AI represents significant operational leverage. In logistics, where margins are typically thin, this level of efficiency improvement directly strengthens competitive positioning and margin potential.

The financial implications extend beyond simple cost reduction. By automating 3 million manual tasks, C.H. Robinson is optimizing their most expensive resource - human capital. This allows them to reallocate talent from repetitive tasks to higher-value customer service and business development activities that drive revenue growth.

The rapid adoption metrics are particularly compelling. With over 5,200 customers now receiving automated services, C.H. Robinson is effectively scaling this technology across their customer base, maximizing the return on their AI investment. The fact that both truckload and LTL operations are seeing equal AI adoption indicates comprehensive implementation rather than isolated cost-cutting.

C.H. Robinson's dual focus on "lowering cost to serve while simultaneously raising quality of service" addresses both sides of the profit equation - reducing expenses while strengthening customer relationships and potentially enabling premium pricing. This is the ideal scenario for margin expansion.

Management's framing of AI as a "growth lever" for 2025 rather than just an efficiency tool signals their confidence in translating these operational improvements into financial performance. For a company with C.H. Robinson's scale (handling 37 million shipments annually), even incremental improvements in processing efficiency can translate to substantial bottom-line impact.

The global logistics provider has also expanded its fleet of generative AI agents to further automate the lifecycle of a freight shipment

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today C.H. Robinson announced it has performed over 3 million shipping tasks with its fleet of generative AI agents – proprietary tech tools the global logistics provider has built to automate steps across the lifecycle of a shipment and reduce customers’ speed-to-market from hours to seconds.

“That’s 3 million manual tasks our people didn’t have to do,” said Arun Rajan, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer. “We’re at well over 1 million price quotes delivered by AI. In March, we hit 1 million orders processed by AI. Those are two of our most mature generative AI agents, and they’re more capable every day as the models we’ve built get smarter and as we apply them to more of our 83,000 customers. Each additional shipping step we’ve automated beyond those has created new leaps in efficiency for global supply chains and freed our people to do more high-value work for our customers.”

As one of the world’s largest logistics providers, C.H. Robinson has been using artificial intelligence at scale for more than a decade – going back to its pioneering freight-matching capabilities and continuing today through its supply chain insights, optimization and visibility. With the newest and most powerful form of AI, the company broke a long-standing barrier to automation in 2023 and announced its first generative AI agents throughout 2024. So far in 2025, data from C.H. Robinson’s 37 million shipments a year and from its supply chain experts have enabled the company to create new AI models, build new AI agents and rapidly increase the impact of its existing AI agents.

Now the company is using its exclusive generative AI tech to provide price quotes, process orders, acquire trucking capacity, set appointments for pickup and delivery, check on loads in transit and has taken the first steps to supply tracking updates with generative AI.

“Price quotes for truckload shipments was a natural starting place for our generative AI tech, because we move more truckload freight than anyone in North America,” said Mark Albrecht, VP for Artificial Intelligence. “But we also do more less-than-truckload shipping than any 3PL. Since we added LTL to our quoting agent, every month we’ve had at least a 30% jump in LTL quotes delivered by AI. Our tech that classifies incoming email can even recognize when a shipper is asking for quotes on both truckload and LTL freight.”

LTL has also been a factor in growing the number of emailed load tenders that no longer have to be manually processed and the number of customers who are benefiting.

“In February and March, our AI took care of just as many LTL orders as truckload orders,” Albrecht said. “We first applied our orders AI agent to emails from our biggest customers with the most truckload volume. Now in 2025, we’re extending it to more of our customers in the small and medium business sector, who are heavy users of both email and LTL shipping. Instead of waiting up to four hours for a person to get to their shipment in an email queue, over 5,200 customers are getting their loads accepted in under 90 seconds.”

As emails come into C.H. Robinson from carriers offering capacity, a new AI agent launched in January reads them, extracts information about available trucks and feeds the details into the company’s real-time capacity center. In February, the agent uploaded nearly 10 times more trucks to the system.

“Like our other AI agents, the truck posting agent lifts this repetitive manual task off of our people, frees them to do more strategic work and increases speed-to-market for our customers,” Albrecht said. “If a carrier emails us that they’ll have an empty truck Wednesday in Dallas and another Thursday in Chicago, the faster we get that information on system, the faster our load-matching platform notifies the carrier of ideal loads for their backhaul and the faster our customers’ freight hits the road.”

In March, C.H. Robinson’s innovations included

• Rolling out a new version of its AI agent for appointments, now that the original has already set more than 1 million
• Adding voice capability to a pilot using generative AI to contact carriers for missing status updates
• Building an AI model for responding to customer requests for tracking updates

“Generative AI played a key role in the company’s 30% productivity increase across 2023 and 2024,” said Rajan, C.H. Robinson’s Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer. “Greater automation not only makes our operations and our customers’ supply chains more efficient. It lowers our cost to serve while simultaneously raising our quality of service. As we deploy generative AI across more aspects of our business, our teams can spend more of their time on the most complex shipments and the most pressing disruptions and the most valuable supply chain optimizations for our customers. In 2025, we increasingly view generative AI as a growth lever and a critical element of our broader ecosystem of AI capabilities for customers, carriers and the company.”

ABOUT C.H. ROBINSON

C.H. Robinson delivers logistics like no one else™. Companies around the world look to us to reimagine supply chains, advance freight technology and solve logistics challenges—from the simple to the most complex. 83,000 customers and 450,000 contract carriers in our network trust us to manage 37 million shipments and $23 billion in freight annually. Through our unmatched expertise, unrivaled scale and tailored solutions, we ensure the seamless delivery of goods across industries and continents via truckload, less-than-truckload, ocean, air and beyond. As a responsible global citizen, we make supply chains more sustainable and proudly contribute millions to the causes that matter most to our employees. For more information, go to www.chrobinson.com. (Nasdaq: CHRW)

CHRW-IR

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250416223613/en/

Maria Lettman

maria.lettman@chrobinson.com

Source: C.H. Robinson

FAQ

How many shipping tasks has C.H. Robinson (CHRW) automated using AI as of 2025?

C.H. Robinson has performed over 3 million shipping tasks using its fleet of generative AI agents.

What productivity improvement did CHRW achieve through generative AI in 2023-2024?

C.H. Robinson reported a 30% productivity increase across 2023 and 2024 through generative AI implementation.

How fast can CHRW process customer load acceptance using AI in 2025?

Over 5,200 customers are getting their loads accepted in under 90 seconds, compared to previous wait times of up to 4 hours.

What was the increase in truck uploads after CHRW launched its AI carrier capacity agent in January 2025?

In February, the AI agent uploaded nearly 10 times more trucks to the system compared to previous manual processing.

How much has CHRW's AI system improved LTL quote processing in 2025?

C.H. Robinson has achieved at least a 30% monthly increase in LTL quotes delivered by AI.