C.H. Robinson says AI agents lifted productivity and cut quote times

C.H. Robinson Worldwide says its AI rollout has produced measurable gains in a freight market that has been under pressure since the pandemic boom faded. Chief executive Dave Bozeman told Fortune the company has raised employee productivity by 45% since 2022 and posted double-digit earnings-per-share growth since 2023, even as revenue fell about 34% over the same period.

The Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based logistics company, commonly called Robinson, is a 120-year-old Fortune 500 business focused largely on freight brokerage, including less-than-container-load shipments, Fortune reported. Bozeman, who has led the company for three years, said Robinson now uses hundreds of AI agents across its operations.

AI aimed at routine work

Bozeman told Fortune he applied a lean management approach, sending teams to map workflows and remove work that did not add value. Tasks that were necessary, repetitive and rule-based became candidates for automation by AI agents, he said.

One example is customer quoting. According to Bozeman, a quote that once took a human specialist about 20 minutes can now be produced by AI agents in 31 seconds, with the systems operating continuously throughout the year.

Bozeman said the faster quoting process does more than save time. He told Fortune it has helped Robinson improve revenue growth, margins, productivity and customer service because customers are more likely to request quotes when the process is quicker and more informative.

Workers shifted to higher-value roles

Bozeman said Robinson is not using AI mainly to replace workers. He told Fortune the company has moved shipping specialists who previously handled quotes into more complex work, such as helping customers address changing tariff rules.

He also said AI has reduced the need to backfill some roles. Robinson’s business has a natural annual employee turnover rate of 11% to 14%, Bozeman told Fortune, and AI agents have allowed the company to avoid hiring replacements for some departing workers.

The change has altered the relationship between staffing and transaction volume in parts of the business, Bozeman said. In customer quoting, he told Fortune, Robinson can now handle more activity without increasing headcount at the same pace.

Broader supply chain ambitions

Bozeman told Fortune he wants Robinson to expand beyond freight forwarding and brokerage into broader supply chain consulting. His goal, he said, is for customers to see Robinson as capable of taking on more of their supply chain function so they can focus on their own core business.

He also said Robinson is putting more attention on small and medium-sized customers, a group where the company has lost market share in recent years. In both supply chain consulting and small-business service, Bozeman told Fortune, Robinson is hiring employees who work with AI assistants to surface useful customer insights.

In-house systems keep costs down

Bozeman said Robinson has avoided high AI operating costs by building most of its agents internally with its own models or open-source models. Fortune reported that the company employs about 450 engineers, many with shipping expertise that Bozeman said helps Robinson build systems tailored to its business.

He told Fortune the company is receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits while spending less than $2 million on token costs. Bozeman said duplicating Robinson’s setup would require working with 15 to 20 separate entities.

Bozeman credited the rollout to more than technology. He said Robinson builds cross-functional teams of engineers, operational experts and staff from departments such as finance and legal, then has them challenge and debate possible AI uses.

He also told Fortune the company uses Failure Mode and Effects Analysis to identify how AI systems could break down and reduce those risks. Bozeman said he has pushed managers to report problems directly through a green-or-red status system, with no yellow category, so the organization can respond quickly when a project is off track.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.