News / More AI linking into supply chains – but jobs 'won't disappear, just change'

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Players across the supply chain are “leaning into the digital workforce” to stay competitive, but claim human jobs won’t disappear, just change. 

Greg Nichols, SVP global customs for DHL Global Forwarding, yesterday said the firm had noted “increased complexity” across the customs clearance processes they carry out in more than 100 countries.  

Across this network, Mr Nichols said, DHL employs some 4,000 customs experts using digital tools processing more than 30,000 declarations a day.  

He explained: “Regulations have changed in many places… I think very few customs agencies around the world are asking for less data than they did, say, five years ago; pretty much all of them are asking for more, and often [want it] earlier in the process as well.

“I think many companies have felt some pain from the changing regulations in their supply chains resulting in clearance delays. That can result in additional costs of demurrage and storage, as well as, potentially, even lost customers.

“And enforcement is increasing,” he added. 

As a result, more customs agencies are using AI-powered tools that can look at declaration quality “in a way that has never been possible before”, and reduce the number of customs brokers in their supply chain. 

Mr Nichols said: “It’s not unusual that we talk to a company operating throughout the world that maybe employs 10, 20, 50 or even 100-plus different customs brokers… if they’re trying to get some sort of harmonisation of process and quality assurance, it’s very difficult to do that with that number of brokers.” 

“We see many companies trying to consolidate to a manageable number so they can better understand the service that’s being provided, and continuously improve that service,” he added. 

Meanwhile, port operator AD Ports today revealed a“blueprint for tomorrow’s workforce”.

It announced that “autonomous digital co-workers” would complement the human workforce by handling “repetitive, data-heavy, and predictive” tasks.  

Adding that it is embedding AI across its finance, HR, and logistics operations, ADP said: “This allows employees to focus on creativity, empathy, and strategic leadership.”

AD Ports estimated that these tools would deliver around 3% fuel savings, increase container utilisation by up to 90% and reduce scheduling and HR processing times by more than 90%. 

And, on the air cargo side, ground handler SATS announced it would be training its future workforce “to tap all the technologies”. 

CEO Henry Low told CNA that over the past year, SATS had redesigned 11 roles, from cargo coordination to customer service, and was now looking at redesigning engineering jobs. 

However, Oscar de Bok, CEO of DHL Global Forwarding Freight, assured that forwarding would “stay a people business”.  He said: “What is important is how you free-up people from the tasks that actually could be done by robotics AI or generative AI.

“It’s not simply about replacing an activity [done] by people one-by-one. It’s actually about optimising activities through what we can do through generative AI.” 

Mr de Bok also warned that while the biggest asset of a business was its people, the “biggest risk in cybersecurity” was also people. 

“It’s very important we continue to train our people. What are the risks? What not to respond to. We do test ‘phishing’ messages and people that step into these, we then train again. So, it never ends,” he explained.  

Mr Nichols also highlighted the risk of “automating into non-compliance”.

“Customs entries, of course, are legal submissions and we have to be very careful,” he said. “That’s why we’re focusing not so much on the entry submission process, and automating that with AI, but more on the pre-entry process, to ensure we actually have the right documents and the right data to move ahead with a customs entry.”