What about Humans in the AI Supply Chain
Supply Chain Unchained
What does a freight forwarder actually look like in five years, and where do humans fit when AI runs the operations?
In Part 1, Simon Borg and Ruben Huber talked about what AI is doing for freight forwarding right now. In this episode, they go further into the longer-term future of the industry, what happens to the people in it, and why the human element isn’t going away anytime soon.
From agentic AI and the five levels of automation, to the challenge of attracting new talent into an industry that’s never had the “big bright lights” of tech, this is a frank, wide-ranging conversation about where freight forwarding is genuinely headed and what smart operators should be doing to get ahead of it.
What We Cover
- The five levels of AI, from basic RPA through to fully autonomous agentic systems, and where freight forwarding sits today
- Why the freight forwarder of the future looks more like a consultant and data strategist than an operations manager
- The dual mentor model, how AI and human mentors together can fast-track junior staff development
- Why attracting talent into freight forwarding is becoming a real strategic challenge, and why that may be about to flip
- How the data flowing through a supply chain (purchase orders, transit times, WMS, final mile) could become a genuine competitive superpower
- The loneliness question: why full automation is technically possible but may never fully arrive
- DHL’s disclosure that 17% of staff are already in highly standardised, centralised functions, and what that signals for the industry
- Why language barriers in offshore teams are becoming irrelevant, and what that means for global logistics operations
- The “golden hammer” problem, and why this moment in AI isn’t the first time the industry has been promised a revolution
Guests
Ruben Huber
Founder and Director, Ocean X Networks
LinkedIn →
“We still move stuff. That’s not going to change. What changes is the expectation from the customer of what you give them, how you present data, how you help them make decisions. That data inside our supply chains is going to be what actually adds more value to freight forwarding.”
Simon Borg, CEO and Founder, Navia
This is Part 2 of a two-part series. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, start there, it covers the short-term AI opportunity and how to get your team on board. Listen to Part 1 →
