AI in Freight Forwarding: A Lesson for Port Suppliers

Freight forwarders are being told to stop treating artificial intelligence as a productivity tool and start using it to recover lost gross profit and serve customers better. For ship chandlers, bunker suppliers, port agents and repair yards, the same warning applies with more force, because their lost profit sits in vessel calls they never heard about until the ship had already sailed.

What happened

Erik Muttersbach, founder of AI software company Zauber, told freight forwarders that AI should be aimed at capturing lost gross profit and delivering more tailored customer service rather than simply cutting staff hours, according to The Loadstar (October 2026).

The distinction matters. Productivity tools make an existing team slightly faster at work it already wins. Gross-profit tools find work the team never saw: enquiries that arrived at 02:00, quotes that went unanswered, port calls nobody tracked.

Why port suppliers are more exposed than forwarders

A forwarder at least knows which shipments are moving through its own booking system. A chandler, agent or yard usually does not know which vessels are heading for its port until the ETA appears on a port schedule or an operator calls asking for a PDA.

• Chandlery and fresh provisions are ordered against a port call, often inside 24 to 48 hours of arrival.
• Bunker stems are fixed by a technical or purchasing superintendent, sometimes only days ahead.
• Repair and drydock work is scoped by a technical superintendent, with the DOC holder approving the spend.
• Husbandry and agency appointments follow whoever the charterer or owner nominates.

The supplier that learns about the vessel first usually wins the enquiry. That is a gross-profit problem, not a productivity problem.

The week's port-call signals

Three stories from the same 24 hours show why the pipeline is moving.

One cargo ship sank and another was damaged in suspected drone strikes off Bulgaria, leaving 11 seafarers missing and five injured, Seatrade Maritime News reported (October 2026). Black Sea calls now carry a security dimension that changes scheduling, crew rotation and insurance for every operator trading there.

France's military took a tanker suspected of belonging to Russia's shadow fleet to Reunion island, a move Moscow called piracy, according to gCaptain (October 2026). Boardings and detentions shift a vessel's next port call with little notice, and they change who is willing to supply it.

Meanwhile Saudi Arabia lost almost a third of its international air cargo capacity over three days after Riyadh's airport shutdown, with heightened airspace risk complicating routings, The Loadstar reported (October 2026). When air freight capacity drops, urgent spare parts and stores increasingly travel with the vessel or wait for a later port, which pushes procurement decisions to sea and to the next call.

Newbuildings keep adding future port calls

Supply demand is not shrinking. Bibby Marine launched the Staffordshire, described as a first-of-its-kind battery-first electric commissioning service operation vessel, at the Armon Shipyard in Vigo, Spain, per Marine Insight (October 2026). Offshore wind vessels need commissioning stores, technical support and yard time.

On the equipment side, Everllence marked MITSUI E&S's 100th anniversary as a two-stroke licensee at a ceremony in Okayama, Japan, The Maritime Executive reported (October 2026). Licensed two-stroke engines mean spare-part and service demand that follows the fleet, port by port.

Autonomy is arriving too. MARTAC has integrated SEA.AI maritime machine vision into its unmanned surface vessels, MarineLink reported (October 2026). Uncrewed and lightly crewed platforms still need port support, but their call patterns are harder to predict from a paper schedule.

What suppliers should do this quarter

1. Track expected arrivals, not berthings. Build the pipeline from vessels due at your ports, not from ships already alongside.
2. Identify the buying role before the enquiry. For stores, that is often the technical or purchasing superintendent; for agency, the operator or charterer; for repairs, the technical manager and DOC holder.
3. Screen every new counterparty. Shadow-fleet seizures and Black Sea strikes mean ownership checks belong in the same step as the quote.
4. Answer fast on the channel the buyer uses. A chandler replying on WhatsApp within the hour beats a quote emailed the next morning.
5. Follow up once, then stop. A second touch on a port call that has not yet fixed its stores is worth more than five touches after sailing.

Where AI actually earns its keep

Applied to a supplier's pipeline, AI is not a typing assistant. It reads vessel movements, works out which company behind the vessel buys what you sell, finds the right person by role, and starts the conversation before the ETA. That is gross profit, not productivity.

How VesselReach helps

VesselReach turns vessel traffic at your ports into conversations with the people who buy.

• Vessel intelligence: vessels near your selected ports plus scheduled and expected arrivals, which means you can open the conversation before the ship docks.
• AI company targeting and decision-maker discovery: the platform identifies the right company behind each vessel and finds operations, procurement, superintendents, chartering and C-suite contacts by role, which means your team stops guessing who to email.
• AI enquiry handling with human handoff: enquiries are answered from approved information, and anything uncertain is escalated to a representative on the Android or iOS app, which means no enquiry goes cold overnight.

Book a VesselReach demo and see the vessels due at your ports this month.