Artificial intelligence is gaining traction in the logistics by becoming more and more deeply involved in the management of operations. This is revealed by the "Transportation Pulse Report 2026" implemented by the digital transport platform Transporeon of the US group Trimble, a report that was conducted by interviewing more than 230 supply chain executives and logistics in Europe and North America. The paper notes that The transport sector has reached an inflection point adoption of AI and that its use in the management of operations are accelerating, even though most companies is still in the early stages of this process. In shippers, are experimenting with more of an area and 44% of respondents said they use already AI in transport planning and optimisation, with further applications in freight procurement and real-time visibility, while carriers focus on pricing and tracking, with 42% implementing AI solutions for pricing and optimization of routes, while 39% use it for on-time monitoring real.

The report explains that the limiting factor remains quality of data, with their inhomogeneity that continues to the main obstacle to the success of AI: both the shippers that carriers point to it as the main impediment to adoption.

According to both categories of respondents, however, Artificial intelligence in the next 3-5 years will be decisive for refining the planning, pricing and execution of transport, with shippers prioritising the transport optimisation (86% expect that AI significantly influences this area), while carriers focus on pricing and route optimisation (59% identifies this area as the main value driver of AI).

In addition, specific opportunities related to to Agentic AI, autonomous software systems capable of monitoring data, make decisions, and perform tasks within limits predefined: for shippers the greatest opportunities for improve operational workflows through the use of Agentic AI reside in the real-time monitoring of the Estimated Time of Arrival (52%), with a focus on route and route optimisation network, as well as the selection and tendering of carriers; for Carrier main application areas include computing of ETAs and alerting systems (59%), followed by optimisation routes and fuel consumption and the negotiation of spot rates.

Despite the potential of automation, two-thirds of shippers and more than half of carriers continue to consider the main role of AI more as a support to the process decision-making system, and as a substitute, preferring human-in-the-loop.

Finally, the report highlights how the full potential of AI emerges within connected ecosystems, which allow a Smooth data exchange and therefore free of siloed structures: 43% of shippers indicate the enhancement of capacities (accuracy of ETAs, risk management of disruption) as the main benefit of the combination between network-based AI and Transportation Management System; 55% of carriers, on the other hand, identifies load matching as more intelligent the most relevant advantage.