Jey Yokeley, vice president sales with TransImpact, details the way that technology — especially in the form of artificial intelligence and machine learning — is aiding how both parcel carriers and shippers make key decisions in an increasingly complex industry.

Technological advances in the parcel industry “seem to be accelerating year over year,” Yokeley says. “That creates a lot of value for companies, but also a lot of confusion about how to keep up with sustained growth.”

What’s improving is the ability of shippers “to drill into their data.” A decade ago, Yokeley says, merely obtaining any degree of visibility from parcel carriers was “table stakes.” Now, “it’s about using data to eliminate inefficiencies, identifying issues and having a clear path to how to solve them.” In the process, shippers acquire a level of expertise that they had previously lacked internally.

For shippers, “technology is starting to add teammates to your team without an additional physical body next to you,” Yokeley says. And that results in much less overhead.

Today, data is key to smart decision-making, whether it’s a logistics operation consisting of a handful of people or dozens. It allows them to identify actual costs and how a given choice of carrier impacts the margins of products going out the door.

For their part, carriers are able to understand shippers better. They’re in a position to proactively take steps in cases where a package is delayed.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are more than buzzwords in the parcel industry today, Yokeley says. Generative AI, in the form of ChatGPT, “has blown this up.” Of particular value is the ability of AI to engage in predictive analytics, helping shippers to get the right product to the right place at the right time. “You can start to factor in all different components that you previously didn’t know how to implement.”