News / Project44 split signals AI shift – CEO predicts pressure on CargoWise

Project44 believes AI is beginning to undermine CargoWise’s dominance of freight forwarding software, a trend it says has prompted it to create a separate business, dedicated to logistics service providers.

The newly launched LSP44 business will focus exclusively on 3PLs, freight forwarders, and brokers, while Project44 would continue serving enterprise shippers with applications, including transportation management, visibility, yard management, and last-mile services.

Founder and CEO Jett McCandless told The Loadstar the split reflected the fundamentally different requirements of shippers and logistics service providers.

“Our sales reps have to context switch between shippers and LSPs… it’s monumental… if you bifurcate these personas… that’s a better outcome.”

While shippers typically buy applications such as transportation management and visibility software, he said forwarders were looking for infrastructure that could be embedded into their own operating systems and customer workflows.

The split also allows Project44 to develop separate product, sales and support teams focused on each market.

The launch comes as the former visibility platform increasingly expands beyond this into AI-powered automation and carrier connectivity – a strategy that also places it in direct competition with established forwarding software providers, particularly CargoWise.

Asked how LSP44 would sit alongside WiseTech Global’s platform, Mr McCandless said that while CargoWise was a popular operating system for many forwarders, customers were increasingly looking elsewhere for carrier connectivity, analytics, and AI capabilities.

“What we’re seeing with a lot of their customers is they use Project44 for the connectivity into the carriers because, quite honestly, we’re just better at it,” he said.

He added that Project44 was increasingly being used for AI agents and exception management, areas where, he claimed, CargoWise “doesn’t have anything that even competes with that”.

More significantly, he said, advances in generative AI meant some forwarders were now beginning to build their own AI application layers rather than relying entirely on commercial software.

“Now that you can build code with AI, a freight forwarder can build an application layer that matches their workflow better than something off the shelf, like CargoWise can build,” he said.

“We are seeing more companies engage us… they’re building their own, they’re keeping it confidential, and they’re engaging us to be that connectivity to their carriers and to essentially move off CargoWise.

“To me, it looks a pretty dangerous trend for CargoWise.”

The comments come at a sensitive time for WiseTech, which has faced customer criticism over pricing changes while seeking to strengthen its own AI capabilities.

Mr McCandless also predicted AI would have a very different impact on shippers and logistics providers.

While manufacturers and retailers were primarily using AI to improve supply chain performance rather than reduce staffing, he said forwarders would inevitably become more efficient, leading to industry consolidation.

“The LSPs that lean into AI and APIs will take more market share, and they will grow,” he said. “The number of people employed in LSPs will be reduced.”

Despite recent speculation over the future of LSP44, Mr McCandless said: “There are no plans or desire to sell it,” adding that he hoped to be involved with the company “for several decades”.

He also confirmed that Project44 continued to operate with public markets in mind, describing an IPO as “a milestone” rather than an end goal.

“We’re in a ready position,” he said. “We’re constantly trying to get better if and when the IPO markets open up.”

Check out today’s News in Brief podcast, with guests Christos Spyrou, of Neutral Air Partner, and The Loadstar‘s Gavin van Marle