C.H. Robinson's AI Agents Cut Quote Times from Days to Minutes

A quote that once took a day for air freight and two to three days for ocean now takes C.H. Robinson's AI agents two to three minutes. That is the sharpest number in the broker's announcement that it has expanded its fleet of AI agents into ocean shipping, air freight and customs brokerage — and it has already produced over 80,000 price quotes for more than 3,600 customers.

The rollout marks the first extension of C.H. Robinson's "Lean AI" capabilities into freight forwarding, and into tasks complex enough that a single shipping job can require more than a dozen AI agents working in tandem. The company says the gains come in speed-to-market, precision and agility — without sacrificing human oversight or personal attention.

What are the agents actually doing?

Three workstreams are live or ramping:

• Price-quoting for ocean and air cargo. Over 80,000 quotes delivered to over 3,600 customers, with turnaround compressed from one day (air) and two to three days (ocean) to two to three minutes.
• Ocean booking. AI has begun managing the thousands of booking requests C.H. Robinson receives every week.
• Customs. AI assists with the dozens of documents and highly detailed processes needed for an international shipment to clear U.S. Customs — work that has grown more labor-intensive as new trade agreements, layers of new tariffs and stricter compliance rules pile on.

The customs angle matters. Tariff complexity is not shrinking, and every new layer of rules turns clearance into document-heavy labor. Automating that work attacks a cost center that has been expanding for every forwarder.

Why bookings were the hard part

The most revealing detail comes from Chief Technology Officer Mike Neill, who explained why a decade of earlier digital effort stalled at roughly 5% automation for ocean and air booking requests.

"We have more work to do automating all the steps for booking, but this is already a major leap forward," Neill said. "Before agentic AI, we'd developed digital booking forms and data exchange setups with customers, but over the course of about 10 years achieved only about 5% automation for ocean and air booking requests."

The mechanism, in his telling: you quote your customer, but then it's the customer's suppliers who book with you. A single customer might have 50 suppliers. Ten years of digital forms couldn't absorb that fragmentation. Agentic AI can, because the booking requests no longer need manual handling.

That 5%-versus-agents contrast is the story's commercial core. Digital tools moved the front door; agents are moving the workflow behind it.

What does this change for shippers?

Speed and predictability, according to President of Global Forwarding Mike Short — and faster re-planning when things break.

"As we've brought our AI playbook to global forwarding, the benefits keep compounding," Short said. "Customers have information they need sooner. Data is more consistent. Processes are more predictable. When plans change or disruptions occur, customers can more quickly evaluate a new routing, mode of shipping, schedule, or price. The faster we get you a quote and handle your booking, the faster you get the ideal carrier and the ideal sailing or flight."

For forwarders competing against C.H. Robinson, the message is blunt: quoting latency is becoming a machine contest. For carriers, faster bookings tighten the tender cycle. For shippers, the practical payoff is a quote in minutes — enough time to compare routings before the sailing window closes.

The rollout timeline

The ocean-booking agents launched in China in August. They extend to the rest of Asia in Q4 and are expected to be live globally in Q1 2027. One agent in that set enriches booking requests with customer-specific context, so the rest of the chain runs at maximum efficiency while still respecting each customer's preferences, requirements and procedures.

Neill's framing — "more work to do" — signals the trajectory: partial automation now, fuller coverage as the agents mature, with global ocean booking coverage the next hard milestone in early 2027.