If you run a forwarding desk, your rate sheets, your customer quirks and your exception rules look nothing like the operator down the road. That is the argument Sushanth Raman, CEO of Pallet, makes for custom AI models over off-the-shelf logistics software. His claim is a 70-80% cut in execution cost, and he says the bigger prize is that the model belongs to you rather than to a platform vendor. For anyone quoting, booking and chasing documents all day, that is a direct hit on the cost per shipment.
What Happened
Speaking to FreightWaves, Raman set out the case against generic AI tools in freight. Every logistics business runs on its own mix of carriers, lanes, tariffs and customer service-level agreements, so a model trained on somebody else's workflow arrives half blind. Pallet's position is that models trained on a single company's own operating data handle the repetitive execution work far more accurately than a shared system tuned for the average.
Raman calls the approach sovereign AI. The model runs on your data, stays under your control, and the intelligence it builds up does not leak back into a vendor's shared training pool. He puts the execution cost reduction at 70-80% and frames data privacy as the second reason operators are moving this way. Shippers who send rate sheets, customer lists and volume histories into a third-party tool are handing over a competitive picture of their book.
Impact on Freight Rates and Operations
Execution cost is the money you spend turning an enquiry into a delivered shipment: keying quotes, rekeying bookings, matching invoices to bills of lading, chasing arrival notices. On a mid-size forwarding desk that work is measured in headcount, and a 70-80% reduction on it changes what a quote can absorb before it stops being profitable. Forwarders running thin margins on LCL consolidation feel this first, because the admin cost per shipment there is high relative to the revenue.
It does not move ocean or air spot rates. What it moves is your handling fee, your turnaround on a quote request, and how many shipments one coordinator can carry. Expect the competitive pressure to show up in quote response times before it shows up in price. If a rival comes back with a booked rate in twenty minutes and you take a day, the rate itself stops being the deciding factor.
What Shippers Should Do
- Measure your current execution cost per shipment. Add up the hours spent on quoting, booking, documentation and invoice matching, then divide by shipments moved. Without that number you cannot judge any vendor's savings claim.
- Ask where your data goes. Before signing with any AI logistics tool, get written answers on whether your rate sheets and customer data train shared models, and whether you can export the model or its outputs if you leave.
- Start with one repetitive process, not the whole desk. Quote generation or arrival-notice handling gives you a clean before-and-after read in weeks rather than a year-long rollout you cannot evaluate.
- Keep your volumetric and chargeable weight maths independent. Whatever automates your booking flow, verify CBM and chargeable weight figures separately so a model error does not travel straight onto a bill of lading.
Key Takeaway
The savings claim is about execution cost, not freight rates, so measure your own cost per shipment before you believe any 70% number.
Plan Your Shipment: Use our free CBM Calculator, Chargeable Weight Calculator, and Container Load Calculator for your next shipment.
Source: FreightWaves