CargoAi Launches CargoMART Strategic Hub for Air Cargo Rate Management

CargoAi has launched the CargoMART Strategic Hub, a platform that combines air cargo rate management with AI-driven workflows in a single product.

The Singapore-based technology firm announced the launch this week through the American Journal of Transportation. CargoMART positions itself as a strategic layer on top of the daily grind of air freight procurement, where forwarders and shippers juggle thousands of airline tariffs, surcharges and validity windows across trade lanes.

For an industry still pricing capacity through spreadsheets and email chains, the launch signals where air cargo distribution is heading: rate data structured once, then reused by automated workflows rather than re-keyed by operations staff.

What does CargoMART actually do?

According to the announcement, the Strategic Hub brings together two functions that forwarders usually run in separate systems.

• Rate management: centralising airline rate content, updates and distribution in one hub.
• AI workflows: automating the tasks that surround rates, from quotation handling to repetitive operational steps.

CargoAi frames the combination as a move beyond simple rate display. The company already operates in the digital air cargo booking space, and the new hub extends that footprint into the back-office processes where rate errors and slow responses cost forwarders margin and customers.

The product name anchors it to CargoMART, CargoAi's rate marketplace, suggesting the Strategic Hub is built to sit alongside rather than replace the existing quotation and booking channel.

Why does this matter for forwarders and shippers?

Air cargo rates remain among the most volatile pricing instruments in freight. Spot levels on major trade lanes can shift sharply within weeks when belly capacity tightens or charter demand spikes, and every rate change multiplies the workload for teams maintaining customer quotations.

A hub that manages rate content and automates surrounding workflows attacks that cost directly. Forwarders gain faster, more consistent quotations; shippers gain responses grounded in current airline data rather than yesterday's tariff sheet; carriers gain a distribution channel that keeps their published rates intact through the sales chain.

The AI component is the differentiator. Competing platforms have digitised rate storage for years; the open question across the sector is whether AI workflows can reliably reduce the labour tied up in quotation handling, tender responses and exception management. CargoAi is betting that they can, and that the market will pay for the integration rather than for another standalone tool.

What comes next?

The launch lands as digital freight platforms across modes race to add AI features to booking and pricing products, from ocean procurement to truckload tendering. Air cargo, with its fragmented rate structures and high quotation volumes, is fertile ground for exactly this type of automation.

CargoAi has not disclosed customer names, pricing tiers or rollout timelines in the announcement, so adoption will be the metric to watch. If the Strategic Hub pulls rate management and AI workflows into daily use at mid-size forwarders, expect competitors to accelerate their own automation roadmaps in response.

By Elena Vasquez, Waybill Wire