C.H. Robinson delivers on AI, but investors still skeptical

Yahoo

16-04-2025

C.H. Robinson (NASDAQ:CHRW) revealed Wednesday it has executed more than 3 million shipping tasks through its proprietary generative AI agents.
'Each additional shipping step we've automated beyond those has created new leaps in efficiency for global supply chains and freed our people to do more high-value work for our customers,' said Arun Rajan, chief strategy and innovation officer, in the release.
For context, Robinson isn't new to AI. According to the global logistics provider, it has spent more than a decade integrating artificial intelligence at scale. In 2023, C.H. Robinson launched its first generative AI agent and began rolling out its features throughout 2024.
Rajan explained that more than 1 million price quotes and 1 million orders have already been processed by AI. Beyond quoting and ordering, these agents handle appointment setting for pickups and deliveries, monitor loads in transit and send tracking updates.
One area seeing particularly strong traction in its AI investments is less-than-truckload shipping. Since incorporating LTL into its AI-driven quoting system, Robinson has reported monthly quote volumes jumping by at least 30%.
'In February and March, our AI took care of just as many LTL orders as truckload orders. … We first applied our orders AI agent to emails from our biggest customers with the most truckload volume. Now in 2025, we're extending it to more of our customers in the small and medium business sector, who are heavy users of both email and LTL shipping. Instead of waiting up to four hours for a person to get to their shipment in an email queue, over 5,200 customers are getting their loads accepted in under 90 seconds,' said Mark Albrecht, VP for artificial intelligence, in the release.
In January, Robinson also launched an AI agent specifically designed to process inbound carrier emails offering truck capacity. Within a month, the system reportedly was uploading 10 times more trucks into the company's real-time capacity center.
March had its own AI updates as well, including an upgraded appointment-scheduling AI, a pilot voice AI capability used for carrier status updates and a new model to automate responses to customer tracking requests.
For anyone who's followed the company's earnings calls, these updates shouldn't come as a surprise. CEO Dave Bozeman and Rajan have been consistently transparent about the company's digital ambitions, especially as the freight market remains stuck in what Bozeman has called a 'prolonged freight recession.'
Robinson's fourth-quarter 2024 earnings painted a mixed picture: strong year-over-year gains in profitability, with its adjusted operating margin climbing to 26.8% and North American Surface Transportation income up 41.2%, even as revenue slid 6.6%.
Yet, sequential declines across some segments and cautious forward guidance underscored that the company's earnings strength isn't riding on a market rebound. Instead, its focus remains on operational transformation.
Rajan made this clear on the last earnings call when he shared how generative AI is already helping automate nearly 10,000 transactions a day by parsing the flood of emails that logistics firms juggle.
The results shared Wednesday are important given how wary investors reacted to Robinson's last earnings, when the stock slid nearly 6% despite margin improvements, as Wall Street remained skeptical about the freight recession's grip. Since those earnings, its stock has declined approximately 8.8%.
C.H. Robinson's next earnings call is set for April 30.
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