As part of the deal, Munich, Germany-based Traton will commit up to $25 million in R&D funding to PlusAI to accelerate factory integration of its SuperDrive software into autonomous trucks of Traton’s brands, which include Scania, MAN, and International.
According to California-based PlusAI, the partnership comes as freight fleets across the U.S. and Europe are facing persistent driver shortages, rising operating costs, and increasing demand for safer, more reliable freight capacity. However, meeting that need with broad adoption of autonomous vehicles will depend on confidence in vehicle performance, rigorous safety validation, and a commercialization model led by established OEMs.
The expanded partnership will build on the collaboration first announced in 2024, when PlusAI’s virtual driver system, SuperDrive, was selected as the on-highway autonomous driving platform for Traton’s brands. Since then, the companies say they have reached technical and operational milestones toward delivering Level 4 autonomous trucking capabilities. Notably, International initiated autonomous fleet trials in Texas with an unspecified logistics and transportation operator.
“Autonomous trucking is a strategic pillar of Traton’s long-term technology roadmap,” said Niklas Klingenberg, Member of the Executive Board, responsible for Research & Development in the Traton Group. “Autonomy represents a meaningful opportunity to deliver higher uptime and greater value for our fleet customers while strengthening the long-term competitiveness of our brands. Our expanded partnership will reflect both this confidence and our shared goal of bringing factory-built on-road autonomous trucks to market at scale.”
The German industrial robotics vendor RobCo has raised $100 million in backing, saying the funds will help to advance its Physical AI roadmap, expand enterprise deployments, and deepen the company’s presence in the U.S. market.
The firm first expanded into the United States in 2025 and now operates in San Francisco and Austin. RobCo says the U.S. has become a major growth market as manufacturers accelerate automation efforts in response to labor constraints, reshoring initiatives, and rising operational complexity.
The “series C” venture capital round was co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Lingotto Innovation, alongside Sequoia Capital, Greenfield Partners, Kindred Capital, Leitmotif, and The Friedkin Group.
Founded in 2020 in Munich, RobCo says it enables increasingly autonomous robot operations inside real production environments including manufacturing and logistics. By combining perception, motion planning, and self-learning methods, RobCo’s platform is designed to reduce friction between today’s processes and end-to-end automation. According to the company, its technology integrates hardware and software as a single full-stack platform. That means its robots can acquire task-specific skills through demonstration and self-learning rather than manual programming, enabling faster deployment, rapid iteration, and easier adaptation to complex or variable processes.
“With $100 million of additional funding, we will become the dominant AI robotics company for manufacturing in the U.S. and Europe” said Roman Hölzl, CEO and Founder of RobCo. “This will allow us to execute on our purpose of automating the ordinary, so humans can do the extraordinary.”
Makers of humanoid robots are targeting logistics, specifically the warehouse, as they continue a steady march to integrate their human-looking machines into today’s increasingly automated workplaces. That’s because research shows that the labor-intensive warehouse is a promising market for the still-nascent technology, which mimics the human body and can perform a range of material handling and order fulfillment tasks.
U.K.-based research firm IDTechEx projects logistics and warehousing will be the second-largest adopter of humanoid robots over the next 10 years, following just behind the automotive industry (see Exhibit 1). Key benefits in the warehouse include bringing precision and consistency to repetitive tasks and improving speed while minimizing human error, the company said in an October market outlook report.
“Facing acute labor shortages and rising operational complexity, warehouses are turning to humanoids as a promising solution,” according to the report. “The benefits are multifaceted: Humanoid robots help lower labor costs, reduce operational disruptions, and offer unmatched flexibility, capable of adapting to varying tasks throughout the day.”
But the research also tells a deeper story: As of last year, humanoid robot deployment in warehouses remained below 5%, due to both technological and commercial roadblocks. Short operating time and long recharge cycles can create substantial downtime, for instance, while limited field testing and safety concerns have left many end-users cautious. A separate industry study, by U.K. researcher Interact Analysis, predicts humanoid robot growth will be relatively slow in the short term, reaching about 40,000 shipments globally by 2032.
“The humanoid robot market is currently experiencing substantial hype, fueled by a large addressable market and significant investment activity,” Rueben Scriven, research manager at Interact Analysis, wrote in the 2025 report. “However, despite the potential, our outlook remains cautious due to several key barriers that hinder widespread adoption, including high prices and the gap in the dexterity needed to match human productivity levels, both of which are likely to persist into the next decade. However, we maintain that there’s a significant potential in the mid- to long term.”
Challenges aside, the work to develop and deploy humanoids continues, with many companies hitting major milestones in 2025 and early 2026. Here’s a look at some of the most recent accomplishments.
DIGIT GETS BUSY
Humanoid robots resemble the human body—in general, they have a torso, head, and two arms and legs, but they can also replicate just portions of the body. Robotic arms can be considered humanoid, as can bots that feature an upper body on a wheeled base. The bipedal variety—those that can walk on two legs—are gaining momentum.
Agility Roboticsannounced late last year that its bipedal humanoid robot, called Digit, had moved more than 100,000 totes in a commercial environment—at a GXO Logistics facility in Flowery Branch, Georgia. Just a few weeks later, the company said it would deploy Digit robots in San Antonio, Texas, to handle fulfillment operations for e-commerce fulfillment platform Mercado Libre. The companies said they plan to explore additional uses for Digit across Mercado Libre’s warehouses in Latin America. They did not give a timeframe for the rollout.
Agility’s humanoid robots are also in use at facilities run by Amazon and German motion technology company Schaeffler.
Agility is a business unit of Humanoid Global Holdings, which includes robotic companies Cartwheel Robotics, RideScan Ltd., and Formic Technologies Inc. in its portfolio of businesses.
ALPHA BIPEDAL TAKES OFF
U.K.-based robotics and AI (artificial intelligence) developer Humanoid launched its first bipedal robot this past December, introducing HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal. The robot went from design to working prototype in just five months and was up and walking just 48 hours after final assembly—a feat that typically takes weeks or even months, according to the bot’s developers.
Alpha Bipedal stands five feet, 10 inches tall and can carry loads of 33 pounds in its arms. Still in testing, the bot is designed to tackle industrial, household, and service tasks.
“HMND 01 is designed to address real-world challenges across industrial and home environments,” Artem Sokolov, founder and CEO of Humanoid, said in a December statement announcing the launch. “With manufacturing sectors facing labor shortages of up to 27%, leaving significant gaps in production, and millions of people performing physically demanding or repetitive tasks, robots can provide meaningful support. In domestic environments, they have the potential to assist elderly people or those with physical limitations, helping with object handling, coordination, and daily activities. Every day, over 16 billion hours are spent on unpaid domestic and care work worldwide—work that, if valued economically, would exceed 40% of GDP in some countries. By taking on these responsibilities, humanoid robots can free humans to focus on higher-value and safer work, improving their productivity and quality of life.”
HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal follows the September launch of Humanoid’s wheeled Alpha platform, which has been tested commercially and helped extend the company’s reach from industrial and logistics tasks—including warehouse automation, picking, and palletizing—to domestic support applications.
AGILE ONE TAKES OFF
Robotic automation company Agile Robots launched its first humanoid robot, called Agile One, in November. The robot is designed to work in industrial settings, where company leaders say it can operate safely and efficiently alongside humans and other robotic solutions. The bot’s key tasks include material gathering and transport, pick-and-place operations, machine tending, tool use, and fine manipulation.
Agile One will be manufactured at the company’s facilities in Germany.
“At Agile Robots, we believe the next industrial revolution is Physical AI: intelligent, autonomous, and flexible robots that can perceive, understand, and act in the physical world,” Agile Robots’ CEO and founder, Dr. Zhaopeng Chen, said in a statement announcing the launch. “Agile One embodies this revolution.”
The new humanoid is part of the company’s wider portfolio of AI-driven robotic systems, which includes robotic hands and arms as well as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and automated guided vehicles (AGVs). All are driven by the company’s AI software platform, AgileCore, and are designed to work together.
“The real value for our industrial customers isn’t just a stand-alone intelligent humanoid, but an entire intelligent production system,” Chen said in the statement. “We see [Agile One] working seamlessly alongside our other robotic solutions, each part of the system, connected and learning from each other. This approach of applying Physical AI to whole production systems can give our customers a new level of holistic efficiency and quality.”
Full production of Agile One begins this year.
Safety first: Industry updates standards for humanoid robots
As two-legged and four-legged robots begin to find applications in supply chain operations, the sector is refining its safety standards to ensure that humanoid and collaborative robots can be deployed at scale, according to a December report from Interact Analysis.
The work is necessary because the unique mechanics associated with legged robotics introduce new challenges around stability, fall dynamics, and unpredictable motion, according to report author Clara Sipes, a market analyst at Interact Analysis. To be precise, unlike statically stable machines, dynamically stable machines such as humanoids collapse when power is cut, creating residual risk in the event of a fall.
In response, new standards such as the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 26058-1 and ISO 25785-1 have been developed to address both statically and dynamically stable mobile robotics. In addition, ISO TR (Technical Report) R15.108 examines the challenges associated with bipedal, quadrupedal, and wheeled balancing mobile robots.
According to the Interact Analysis report, one of the most notable shifts is the removal of references to “collaborative modes.” In the most recent revisions, collaborative robots must be evaluated based on the application, not the robot alone, since each application carries its own risks, and the standard now encourages assessing the entire environment within which the robot operates.
Additional changes cover requirements for improved cyber resilience, the report said. European regulatory changes, particularly the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), AI Act, and Machinery Regulation, are establishing a unified framework for safety, cybersecurity, and risk management. That will shape the future of industrial automation by addressing new vulnerabilities within products that are increasingly connected to a network.
In its report, Interact Analysis advised manufacturers and integrators in the robotic sector to prepare early for the upcoming standards revisions. With multiple regulations taking effect over the next few years, organizations that begin aligning now will avoid costly redesigns and rushed compliance efforts later, the report noted.
The state of the freight economy, rise of artificial intelligence (AI), and accelerating levels of fraud across the trucking industry topped the agenda at SMC3 JumpStart26, an annual supply chain education event held in Atlanta earlier this week.
JumpStart brings together professionals from across the less-than-truckload (LTL) industry for three days of networking, presentations, and panel discussions on the issues affecting the industry. More than 500 people turned out for the event, which was held at the Renaissance Atlanta Waverly, January 26-28.
The freight economy continues to be marked by uncertainty, despite some bright spots on the broader economic horizon, according to economist Keith Prather of Armada Corporate Intelligence, who gave an economic update on the first day of the conference. Prather cited consumer spending on services rather than goods, tariff volatility, and an unhealthy housing market as persistent drags on the freight economy. Bright spots include anticipated tax refunds that may boost consumer spending on goods later this year, a slowly improving residential construction market that could help spur freight movement, and strong GPD growth heading into 2026.
Touting AI
AI dominated much of the discussion over the three days, with LTL freight carriers, third-party logistics services (3PL) providers, and technology companies detailing how the technology can be used to improve operations within companies and across the industry. Speakers included Mark Albrecht, vice president of artificial intelligence and enterprise strategy at 3PL C.H. Robinson.
Albrecht’s talk coincided with the company’s launch of AI agents aimed at combatting missed LTL pickups. Two new AI agents are tracking down missed pickups and using advanced reasoning to determine how to keep freight moving, according to a January 26 company announcement. C.H. Robinson said it has automated 95% of checks on missed LTL pickups, saving more than 350 hours of manual work per day, helping shippers’ freight move up to a day faster, and reducing unnecessary return trips to pick up missed freight by 42%. The tools are part of a fleet of more than 30 AI agents C.H. Robinson has developed in house to streamline LTL processes.
Cracking down on fraud
The conference also featured an interview with Derek Barrs, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Barrs addressed the widespread fraud affecting the trucking industry, discussing how FMCSA is working with states and other federal agencies to combat safety problems arising from several issues, including the issuing of non-domiciled commercial drivers licenses (CDLs), English-language proficiency enforcement, and entry-level driver training programs.
Barrs said FMCSA is working with states to ensure the enforcement of existing English-language proficiency regulations and that “thousands and thousands” of drivers have been placed out of service as a result. FMCSA is also working with states to review their processes for issuing non-domiciled CDLs, which may be granted to non-citizens living in the United States. Much of the problem centers around states issuing licenses to non-citizens for periods of time that exceed their legal status to work in the country. Barrs said most states have stopped issuing non-domiciled CDLs while those processes are being reviewed but said much work remains to fix breakdowns in the system.
Barrs said FMCSA is focused on rooting out bad actors in driver training as well, noting that he agency has removed 6,800 listings from its training provider registry to date and that investigations of driver training schools continue.
Show organizers cited a strong turnout for the event despite being affected by winter storm Fern, which resulted in thousands of flight cancellations nationwide and widespread power outages in the Southeast. The crowd of more than 500 attendees was down from an expected group of more than 700 registrants.
SMC3 will hold its annual Connections event this coming June in Palm Beach, Fla.
The international IFOY competition for innovative material handling products has named the finalists for its annual awards, saying 17 products and solutions from eight countries have reached the final round, selected from a starting pool of 49 applications.
Winners will eventually be crowned in five categories: Integrated Customer Solutions, Industrial Trucks, Robot Warehouse System, Intralogistics Software, and Special of the Year.
To reach the final stage, all finalists will undergo the IFOY Audit during the “Test Camp Intralogistics” on April 15–16 in Dortmund, where industry visitors can experience and test the innovations live. The winners of the IFOY AWARD 2026 will be announced on June 25 at the Atrium of the IFOY event partner AEB in Stuttgart.
For the five product categories, the finalists include products from: Crown, idealworks, Jungheinrich, KNAPP, Libiao Robotics, Locus Robotics, Mobotic, Nomagic, PureLoX SOLUTIONS, SSI SCHÄFER, STILL, The Mobile Robot Company, and Wiltsche Fördersysteme.
And additionally, four young companies are competing for the title “IFOY Start-up of the Year.” They include: AI2Connect, Koiotech, Pyck, and Romb Technologies.
According to Werner, the two moves establish it as the fifth-largest dedicated carrier in the U.S., meaningfully increase revenues from its higher-margin dedicated division, and deliver immediate accretion to earnings per share. FirstFleet will operate as a business unit within Werner’s TTS segment, complementing the existing Dedicated division.
FirstFleet brings $615 million in annual revenues, approximately 2,400 tractors, 11,000 trailers, and 37 properties near 130 customer sites around the country. The firm says its capabilities are designed to service markets such as grocery, bakery goods, and corrugated packaging.
In comparison, Werner in 2025 had approximately 7,365 total dedicated trucks and nearly 40,000 trailers. Today, Werner said that buying FirstFleet accelerates its recent efforts to grow its dedicated division, which offers high margins and long-term contracts. With the addition of FirstFleet, Werner expects to grow its dedicated revenues by 50% and become North America's fifth-largest dedicated carrier, as ranked by power units.
“Powered by the talent of our combined associates, this partnership comes at the ideal moment for our company. By uniting FirstFleet's expertise in complementary new verticals with our resources and nearly 5,000 dDedicated trucks, we will improve our competitive position and accelerate profitable growth,” Werner’s Chairman and CEO, Derek Leathers, said in a release. “We are confident that, with the addition of the FirstFleet team, Werner will be stronger and even better positioned to serve our loyal customers and capitalize on profitable growth opportunities as market conditions continue to improve.”
In his 40 years leading McLeod Software, one of the nation’s largest providers of transportation management systems for truckers and 3PLs (third-party logistics providers), Tom McLeod has seen many a new technology product introduced with much hype and promise, only to fade in real-world practice and fail to mature into a productive application.
In his view, as new tech players have come and gone, the basic demand from shippers and trucking operators for technology has remained pretty much the same, straightforwardly simple and unchanged over time: “Find me a way to use computers and software to get more done in less time and [at a] lower cost,” he says.
“It’s been the same goal, from decades ago when we replaced typewriters, all the way to today finding ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) to automate more tasks, streamline processes, and make the human worker more efficient,” he adds. “Get more done in less time. Make people more productive.”
The difference between now and the pretenders of the past? McLeod and others believe that AI is the real thing and, as it continues to develop and mature, will be incorporated deeper into every transportation and logistics planning, execution, and supply chain process, fundamentally changing and forcing a reinvention of how shippers and logistics service providers operate and manage the supply chain function.
“But it is not a magic bullet you can easily switch on,” McLeod cautions. “While the capabilities look magical, at some level it takes time to train these models and get them using data properly and then come back with recommendations or actions that can be relied upon,” he adds.
THE DATA CONUNDRUM
One of the challenges is that so much supply chain data today remains highly unstructured—by one estimate, as much as 75%. Converting and consolidating myriad sources and formats of data, and ensuring it is clean, complete, and accurate remains perhaps the biggest challenge to accelerated AI adoption.
Often today when a broker is searching for a truck, entering an order, quoting a load, or pulling a status update, someone is interpreting that text or email, extracting information from the transportation management system (TMS), and creating a response to the customer, explains Doug Schrier, McLeod’s vice president of growth and special projects. “With AI, what we can do is interpret what the email is asking for, extract that, overlay the TMS information, and use AI to respond to the customer in an automated fashion,” he says.
To come up with a price quote using traditional methods might take three or four minutes, he’s observed. An AI-enabled process cuts that down to five seconds. Similarly, entering an order into a system might take four to five minutes. With AI interpreting the email string and other inputs, a response is produced in a minute or less. “So if you are doing [that task] hundreds of times a week, it makes a difference. What you want to do is get the human adding the value and [use AI] to get the mundane out of the workflow.”
Yet the growth of AI is happening across a technology landscape that remains fragmented, with some solutions that fit part of the problem, and others that overlap or conflict. Today it’s still a market where there is not one single tech provider that can be all things to all users.
In McLeod’s view, its job is to focus on the mission of providing a highly functional primary TMS platform—and then complement and enhance that with partners who provide a specialized piece of an ever-growing solution puzzle. “We currently have built, over the past three decades, 150 deep partnerships, which equates to about 250 integrations,” says Ahmed Ebrahim, McLeod’s vice president of strategic alliances. “Customers want us to focus on our core competencies and work with best-of-breed parties to give them better choices [and a deeper solution set] as their needs evolve,” he adds.
One example of such a best-of-breed partnership is McLeod’s arrangement with Qued, an AI-powered application developer that provides McLeod TMS clients with connectivity and process automation for every load appointment scheduling mode, whether through a portal, email, voice, or text.
Before Qued was integrated, there were about 18 steps a user had to complete to get an appointment back into the TMS, notes Tom Curee, Qued’s president. With Qued, those steps are reduced to virtually zero and require no human intervention.
As soon as a stop is entered into the TMS, it is immediately and automatically routed to Qued, which reaches out to the scheduling platform or location, secures the appointment, and returns an update into the TMS with the details. It eliminates manual appointment-making tasks like logging on and entering data into a portal, and rekeying or emailing, and it significantly enhances the value and efficiency of this particular workflow activity for McLeod users.
LEGACY SYSTEM PAIN
One of the effects of the three-year freight recession has been its impact on investment. Whereas in better times, logistics and trucking firms would focus on buying tech to reduce costs, enhance productivity, and improve customer service, the constant financial pressure has narrowed that focus.
“First and exclusively, it is now on ‘How do we create efficiency by replacing people and really bring cost levels down because rates are still extremely low and margins really tight,’” says Bart De Muynck, a former Gartner research analyst covering the visibility and supply chain tech space, and now principal at consulting firm Bart De Muynck LLC.
Most industry operators he’s spoken with have looked at AI. One example he cites as ripe for transformation is freight brokerages, “where you have rows and rows of people on the phone.” They are asking the question “Which of these processes or activities can we do with AI?”
Yet De Muynck points to one issue that is proving to be a roadblock to change and transformation. “For many of these companies, their foundational technology is still on older architectural platforms,’’ in some cases proprietary ones, he notes. “It’s hard to combine AI with those.” And because of years of low margins and cash flow restrictions, “they have not been able to replace their core ERP [enterprise resource planning system] or the TMS for that carrier or broker, so they are still running on very old tech.”
For those players, De Muynck says they will discover a disconcerting reality: the difficulty of trying to apply AI on a platform that is decades old. “That will yield some efficiencies, but those will be short term and limited in terms of replacing manual tasks,” he says.
The larger question, De Muynck says, is “How do you reinvent your company to become more successful? How do we create applications and processes that are based on the new architecture so there is a big [transformative] lift and shift [and so we can implement and deploy foundational pieces fairly quickly]? Then with those solutions build something with AI that is truly transformational and effective.” And, he adds, bring the workforce along successfully in the process.
“People have some things in their jobs they have to do 100 times a day,” often a menial or boring task, De Muynck adds. “AI can automate or streamline those tasks in such a way that it improves the employee’s work experience and job satisfaction, while driving efficiencies. [Rather than eliminate a position], brokers can redirect worker time to more higher-value, complex tasks that need human input, intuition, and leadership.”
“With logistics, you cannot take people completely out of the equation,” he emphasizes. “[The best AI solutions] will be a human paired up with an intelligent AI agent. It will be a combination of people [and their tribal knowledge and institutional experience] and technology,” he predicts.
EYES OPEN
Shippers, truckers, and 3PLs are experiencing an awakening around the possibilities of technologies today and what modern architecture, in-the-cloud platforms, and AI-powered agents can do, says Ann Marie Jonkman, vice president–industry advisory for software firm Blue Yonder. For many, the hardest decision is where to start. It can be overwhelming, particularly in a market environment shaped by chaos, uncertainty, and disruption, where surviving every week sometimes seems a challenge in itself.
“First understand and be clear about what you want to achieve and the problems you want to solve” with a tech strategy, she advises. “Pick two or three issues and develop clear, defined use cases for each. Look at the biggest disruptions—where are the leakages occurring and how do I start?”
Among the most frequently targeted areas of investment she sees are companies putting capital and resources into broad areas of automation, not just physical activity with robotics, but in business processes, workflows, and operations. It also is about being able to understand tradeoffs, getting ahead of and removing waste, and moving the organization from a reactionary posture to one that’s more proactive and informed, and can leverage what Jonkman calls “decision velocity.” That places a priority on not only connecting the silos, but also on incorporating clean, accurate, and actionable data into one command center or control tower. When built and deployed correctly, such central platforms can provide near-immediate visibility into supply chain health as well as more efficient and accurate management of the end-to-end process.
Those investments in supply chain orchestration not only accelerate and improve decision-making around stock levels, fulfillment, shipping choices, and overall network and partner performance, but also provide the ability to “respond to disruption and get a handle on the data to monitor and predict disruption,” Jonkman adds. It’s tying together the nodes and flows of the supply chain so “fulfillment has the order ready at the right place and the right time [with the right service]” to reduce detention and ensure customer expectations are met.
It is important for companies not to sit on the sidelines, she advises. Get into the technology transformation game in some form. “Just start somewhere,” even if it is a small project, learn and adapt, and then go from there. “It does not need to be perfect. Perfection can be the enemy of success.”
The speed of technology innovation always has been rapid, and the advent of AI and automation is accelerating that even further, observes Jason Brenner, senior vice president of digital portfolio at FedEx. “We see that as an opportunity, rather than a challenge.”
He believes one of the industry’s biggest challenges is turning innovation into adoption, “ensuring new capabilities integrate smoothly into existing operations and deliver value quickly.” Brenner adds that in his view, “innovation is healthy and pushes everyone forward.”
Execution at scale is where the rubber meets the road. “Delivering technology that works reliably across millions of shipments, geographies, and constantly changing conditions requires deep operational integration, massive data sets, and the ability to test solutions in multiple environments,” he says. “That’s where FedEx is uniquely positioned.”
DEFYING AUTOMATION NO MORE
Before the arrival of the newest forms of AI, “there were shipping tasks that had defied automation for decades,” notes Mark Albrecht, vice president of artificial intelligence for freight broker and 3PL C.H. Robinson. “Humans had to do this repetitive, time-consuming—I might even say mind-numbing—yet essential work.”
Application of early forms of AI, such as machine learning tools and algorithms, provided a hint of what was to come. CHR, which has one of the largest in-house IT development groups in the industry, has been using those for a decade.
Large language models and generative AI were the next big leap. “It’s the advent of agentic AI that opens up new possibilities and holds the greatest potential for transformation in the coming year,” Albrecht says, adding, “Agentic AI doesn’t just analyze or generate content; it acts autonomously to achieve goals like a human would. It can apply reasoning and make decisions.”
CHR has built and deployed more than 30 AI agents, Albrecht says. Collectively, they have performed millions of once-manual tasks—and generated significant benefits. “Take email pricing requests. We get over 10,000 of those a day, and people used to open each one, read it, get a quote from our dynamic pricing engine, and send that back to the customer,” he notes. “Now a proprietary AI agent does that—in 32 seconds.”
Another example is load tenders. “It used to take our people upwards of four hours to get to those through a long queue of emails,” he recalls. That work is now done by an AI agent that reads the email subject line, body, and attachments; collects other needed information; and “turns it into an order in our system in 90 seconds,” Albrecht says. He adds that if the email is for 20 orders, “the agent can handle them simultaneously in the same 90 seconds,” whereas a human would have to handle them sequentially.
Time is money for the shipper at every step of the logistics process. So the faster a rate quote is provided, order created, carrier selected, and load appointment scheduled, the greater the benefits to the shipper. “It’s all about speed to market, which whether a retailer or manufacturer, often translates into if you make the sale or keep an assembly line rolling.”
LOOKING AHEAD
Strip away all the hype, and the one tech deliverable that remains table stakes for all logistics providers and their customers are platforms that provide a timely and accurate view into where goods are and with whom, and when they will get to their destination. “First and foremost is real-time visibility that enables customer access to the movement of their product across the supply chain,” says Penske Executive Vice President Mike Medeiros. “Then, getting further upstream and allowing them to be more agile and responsive to disruptions.”
As for AI, “it’s not about replacing [workers]; it’s about pointing them in the right direction and helping [them] get more done in the same amount of time, with a higher level of service and enabling a more satisfying work experience. It’s human capital complemented by AI-powered agents as virtual assistants. We’ve already [started] down that path.”
CMA CGM will retain full operational control of the joint venture, called United Ports LLC. The company said it plans to reinvest the money in the continued growth of core businesses, while expanding supply chain capacity to meet the ever-growing demand for state-of-the-art shipping and logistics solutions across sea, land, air and logistics.
The full United Ports portfolio currently includes 10 assets: Los Angeles Fenix Marine Services (United States), Port Liberty terminals in New York and Bayonne (United States), Santos terminals (Brazil), CSP Valencia and CSP Bilbao (Spain), Terminal Maritima del Guadalquivir (Spain), TTI Algeciras (Spain), Nhava Sheva Freeport Terminal (India), CMA CGM Kaohsiung Terminal (Taiwan), and Gemalink in Cai Mep (Vietnam).
However, it could grow larger since the joint venture may raise additional funds to acquire new terminal projects in the U.S. and globally, CMA CGM said. As part of the transaction, Stonepeak will have the opportunity to contribute an additional $3.6 billion in funding for future joint terminal projects.
“Container terminals play an essential role in global trade and are among the most difficult to substitute or replicate transportation infrastructure assets,” said James Wyper, Senior Managing Director, Head of U.S. Private Equity, and Head of Transportation & Logistics at Stonepeak. “This joint venture represents a truly differentiated opportunity to invest in a high-quality portfolio of strategically located terminals alongside one of the largest and most respected shipping and logistics groups in the world. We look forward to working closely with CMA CGM’s expert team to support this critical infrastructure.”
To keep those new electric trucks running, Tesla said it would provide Semi Chargers to facilitate heavy-duty electric vehicle truck charging. Expected to open in Summer 2026, the Tesla charging stations will be built at select Pilot locations along I-5, I-10, and “several major corridors where the need for heavy-duty charging is highest,” the companies said.
Specifically, construction of the charging stations will begin in the first half of 2026 at sites across California, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. Pilot travel centers equipped with Tesla Semi Chargers will host four to eight charging stalls and will use Tesla’s V4 cabinet charging technology, delivering up to 1.2 megawatts of power at each stall.
This network will initially focus on providing charging infrastructure only for Tesla’s Semi trucks, but it may be expanded in the future to be compatible with heavy-duty electric vehicles from other manufacturers.
By building the units at truck stops, Tesla says it is matching the technology’s need for long charging sessions with drivers’ regulated resting time. That’s because the majority of a Semi truck’s 500-mile range can be recovered in a 30-minute charge session, matching a normal mandated break period for professional drivers, Tesla says.
However, the two companies said they are investing in the project at a time when demand for alternative fuels continues to grow across North America, and Pilot continues to diversify its offerings to meet the needs of guests and fleet customers, such as electrification, hydrogen, renewable diesel and higher-blend biodiesel.
The 22-property portfolio comprises modern and recently renovated IOS, fleet maintenance, and HFT facilities spanning nine states including Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, with concentrations in Atlanta (seven properties), Houston (three properties) and Laredo (four properties). The properties, including 14 maintenance facilities, seven transload buildings and one truck terminal, feature an optimal average building size of 14,800 square feet on approximately 4 acres, providing highly functional space with multiple maintenance bays, transload and warehousing capabilities, expansive outdoor storage areas, secured access and comprehensive site lighting. The portfolio is currently 95% leased.
“The fundamentals driving demand for IOS and HFT facilities in these markets remain strong as freight lanes shift,” Joe Noon, Senior Vice President of Investments, Realterm, said in a release. “We're seeing sustained growth in fleet maintenance and transload logistics that make highly functional, well-located assets such as these increasingly valuable to operators.”
The new technology is now tracking down missed pickups and using advanced reasoning to determine how to keep freight moving. Those agents are also collecting and analyzing previously unavailable data that LTL carriers are now using to improve their technology, scheduling, and operations.
C.H. Robinson says it launched the initiative because with one truck carrying freight from up to 20 different shippers, LTL shipping requires complex coordination to pick it all up, take it to a terminal, and recombine it on other trucks with other freight heading the same direction. That complexity means that missed pickups and costly delays can ripple through LTL networks.
According to the company, the results are already in: 95% of checks on missed LTL pickups have been automated, saving over 350 hours of manual work per day. And unnecessary return trips to pick up missed freight have been reduced by 42%.
“A missed pickup isn’t just a minor inconvenience,” Greg West, Vice President for LTL, said in a release. “When a truck arrives and the freight or packaging isn’t ready, or the carrier couldn’t make it because they got stuck in traffic, it forces another truck to come back the next day. That might not even be our shipper’s freight, but it creates a domino effect for other freight that was supposed to get picked up and for all the other trucks down the line.”
The new agents join a fleet of more than 30 other AI agents that C.H. Robinson has already built for LTL. They include units that handle LTL price quotes, orders, freight classification, shipment tracking, and proof of delivery.
“We don’t just throw AI at anything and everything. It’s not a hobby for us. We use AI agents only where they can deliver tangible business results,” C.H. Robinson’s vice president for artificial intelligence, Mark Albrecht, said. “Our Lean AI processes helped us uncover the extent of time wasted in handling missed pickups and where artificial intelligence had the most potential to augment our automation software.”
Those maintenance projects will include replacing and upgrading rail, track infrastructure like ballast and rail ties, and maintaining rolling stock. It will consist of approximately 13,000 miles of track surfacing and/or undercutting work, the replacement of 2.5 million rail ties and more than 400 miles of rail.
According to the Fort Worth, Texas-based railway, investing in existing infrastructure results in fewer unscheduled service outages that can slow down the rail network and reduce capacity.
In addition, the plan calls for $358 million to be designated for expansion and efficiency projects. Within that amount, major facility projects include completing property acquisitions and continuing development activities for the planned Barstow International Gateway project in California and continuing development and starting construction activities for a future intermodal facility in the Phoenix area.
Major line expansion projects include track expansions at BNSF’s Galesburg, IL, and Winslow, AZ, yards to increase switching capacity, supporting network service performance and asset (railcars and locomotives) productivity initiatives.
Intermodal equipment and maintenance provider CMC today rebranded the company under its new name, combining three container hardware companies that merged in 2023 with the intent to address a wider market for maintenance and repair (M&R) and storage services for shipping containers.
Charleston, South Carolina-based CMC is the new name for those three firms; Marine Repair Service – Container Maintenance Company (CMC), ITI Intermodal, Inc. (ITI), and Columbia Container Services (CCS).
While the company’s name and visual identity are new, CMC said the organization will continue providing best-in-class maintenance, storage, and repair services for containerized freight across the South, Northeast and Midwest regions.
“This transformation represents the next step in our journey together,” Vince Marino, chief executive officer of CMC, said in a release. “Our new name and logo symbolize the strength that comes from the unity of three family-founded companies growing into one cohesive team. CMC stands for our shared commitment to safety, reliability, integrity, and the long-term relationships that define our success.”
The numbers aren’t in yet, but past winter storms provide a solid comparison, the report said. For example, shippers often seek out insulated refrigerated vans during extreme cold temperatures to haul typically dry van freight that is susceptible to freezing. A similar storm in mid-January 2024 led to sizable spot rate increases for both van types, even as rates typically would have fallen significantly. And rates then resumed their post-holiday normalization the following week.
This year, as one measure of the broad impact of “Winter Storm Fern” on national logistics flows, federal regulators on Saturday issued a Regional Emergency Declaration providing temporary hours-of-service (HOS) relief for certain motor carriers and drivers due to severe winter storms and extreme cold impacting multiple states. Such moves are typical before large storms, but this one was notable for its sheer size, covering 40 states (AL, AR, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MD, MA, MI, MS, MN, MO, MT, NE, NH, NJ, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WV, WI, WY), according to the Federal Motor Carrer Safety Administration (FMCSA).
And even as those impacts continue to ripple across the country, emergency recovery group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN) said Winter Storm Fern had brought heavy snow and ice to approximately 35 states, causing substantial disruptions affecting supply chains, including:
thousands of flight/rail service cancellations
widespread power outages
suspended trucking operations, and the
restricted flow of critical goods like food, fuel and pharmaceuticals
That much is typical for major weather events, but ALAN said Fern’s impact could linger. “However unlike other winter storms, it has affected most of the country rather than one or two states or regions. And for some areas, there is no imminent end to the dangerously cold conditions that could delay both recovery efforts and the ability to get back to ‘business as usual’,” ALAN Executive Director Kathy Fulton said in a statement.
Companies are outsourcing more business to third-party logistics providers (3PLs), and that rising trend drove larger industrial leases in 2025, with 3PLs capturing the largest share of the top 100 leases, according to a report from commercial real estate firm CBRE.
3PLs accounted for 44 of the top 100 leases in 2025, up 57% from 28 leases in 2024, CBRE said. The significant increase indicates that large companies are relying on 3PLs to manage their complex logistics so they can focus on their core business. At the same time, the rise of e-commerce is further fueling this trend, as online retailers increasingly rely on 3PLs for logistics support.
General retailers and wholesalers were second behind 3PLs with 28 lease signings, down from 38 in 2024. The automobile, tires and parts sector was the only other industry to increase its share of the top 100 with seven leases in 2025 compared with five in 2024.
“Occupiers committed to larger footprints and longer lease terms as they took advantage of opportunities to upgrade their space amid a continued flight to quality trend,” said John Morris,President of Americas Industrial & Logistics at CBRE. “2025’s activity reflects continued strong demand for large distribution facilities as occupiers prioritize scale, efficiency, and long-term supply chain solutions.
CBRE’s report reveals that, while the number of leases in 2025 exceeding 1 million sq. ft. declined to 46 from 49 in 2024, the average size of the top 100 leases increased to 988,000 sq. ft. from 968,000 sq. ft. The average lease term also rose to approximately 98 months, up from 92 months the year previously. The increase in lease terms is due to the stabilization of supply and rent growth. As a result, landlords are now more focused on maintaining occupancy and securing tenants for longer periods. Some landlords are offering incentives to lock in occupancy and reduce turnover risk.
French global logistics provider CMA CGM has taken delivery of its 400th owned vessel, the CMA CGM MONTE CRISTO, marking the first in a series of six methanol-fueled container ships and advancing the company’s decarbonization strategy.
With a carrying capacity of 15,000 twenty foot-equivalent units (TEUs), the 366-meter long ship will enter commercial service on 29 January 2026 in Ningbo, on the BEX2 – Phoenician Express service, connecting North Asia with the Levant and the Adriatic Sea.
By adding the CMA CGM MONTE CRISTO, the company reaches a milestone of 400 owned vessels, within a total fleet of more than 650 vessels worldwide. The boat becomes the 11th methanol container ship in the CMA CGM fleet, out of a total of 24 such vessels on order. Together, they are part of the company’s stated plan to achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2050.
In addition to its own fleet of vessels, CMA CGM is now marking 10 years as part of OCEAN Alliance, which it calls the world’s largest maritime network for the future of global trade. Recently extended until at least 2032, OCEAN Alliance operates 41 service routes by supporting a network of ships operated by its partner firms, the CMA CGM Group, COSCO Shipping, Evergreen and OOCL. Together, they deploy 394 container ships—including 130 CMA CGM vessels—hauling a total capacity of 5.3 million TEUs.
The engines from Wabtec mark the railroad’s first new locomotive purchase since 2022, and are expected to be delivered in the second half of 2026.
According to Norfolk Southern, the model ES44AC locomotives add reliability by using the newest generation of control systems, which enable real-time remote diagnostics and live operational views, like an IT department accessing a computer screen. This innovation will help reduce delays by spotting potential issues before they become larger problems.
With about 1,600 high-horsepower locomotives currently active, this investment ensures Norfolk Southern remains highly competitive and continues delivering on customer goals efficiently, the company said.
While the total number of supply chain crime incidents remained relatively stable in 2025, estimated losses surged 60% to nearly $725 million as organized criminal groups increasingly focused on high value shipments, according to CargoNet.
By the raw numbers, CargoNet recorded 3,594 supply chain crime events across the United States and Canada in 2025, essentially unchanged from the 3,607 events reported in 2024. However, incidents involving confirmed cargo theft rose sharply, increasing 18% year-over-year from 2,243 to 2,646.
Sorted by targeted commodities, food and beverage products experienced the largest increase, with 708 thefts, a 47% jump from 2024. And metal theft rose 77%, driven by ongoing demand for copper products.
Meanwhile, theft of consumer-grade electronics such as televisions and personal computers declined. In contrast, criminals increasingly targeted enterprise computer components and cryptocurrency mining hardware. Another hot target was vehicle-related products—including tires, auto parts, and motor oils—with a notable focus on engines and components bound for domestic vehicle assembly plants.
Looking into the new year, CargoNet expects continued targeting of high-value technology products in 2026, particularly RAM modules, storage drives, and enterprise computing equipment. Theft by deception groups are anticipated to increase their focus on misdirecting shipments tendered to legitimate carriers, sidestepping compliance controls that have traditionally centered on the tendering process itself.
Another factor that could increase cargo theft is the White House’s rising focus on nondomiciled CDL enforcement, CargoNet said. That’s because many complex cargo theft schemes rely on acquiring existing motor carriers with strong load histories. Increased enforcement may now reduce available capacity and expand the pool of carriers for sale, potentially creating new opportunities for criminal enterprises to establish fraudulent operations.
“Criminal enterprises are becoming more selective and sophisticated, targeting extremely high value shipments rather than relying on opportunistic theft,” Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at Verisk CargoNet, said in a release. “This strategic shift explains how losses can rise 60 percent even as overall incident volume holds steady.”
A growing number of voices from the freight transportation field are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hold that federal law preempts state-law negligence claims against freight brokers.
The issue is the core of a case called Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC. And according to logistics experts, it has significant implications for wholesalers and distributors that hire motor carriers or rely on freight brokers to move goods across state lines.
Specifically, the Supreme Court will soon decide whether the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA), 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c), preempts state negligent-hiring claims against brokers for selecting motor carriers. The outcome will determine whether wholesalers and distributors operate under uniform national transportation standards or face a patchwork of state tort rules.
According to The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW), a patchwork of rules would increase costs and legal uncertainty. So the group recently filed a brief to the court stating that opinion. NAW warns that allowing negligent-hiring claims to proceed would expose brokers to unpredictable liability, prompting narrower carrier selection and higher insurance and litigation costs—costs that would ultimately be borne by wholesalers, distributors, and consumers without improving safety outcomes.
“Trucking is a key mode of transportation for America’s wholesaler-distributors,” Brian Wild, Chief Government Relations Officer at NAW, said in a release. “Subjecting brokers to state-by-state negligence lawsuits for performing that core service would reduce carrier options, would raise freight costs, and make it harder for distributors to serve customers efficiently and competitively.”
Likewise, C.H. Robinson filed a similar brief last week in the case, saying that it looks forward to presenting its oral argument before the Supreme Court on March 4. “For nearly a century, federal law has provided one clear set of rules for how freight moves across the country. That clarity matters for safety and for the economy,” said Dorothy Capers, Chief Legal Officer, C.H. Robinson. “Our brief asks the Court to reaffirm that framework so responsibilities remain where they belong—and goods keep moving reliably for families and businesses nationwide.”
And third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA) also submitted a brief, arguing that state-level liability conflicts with federal transportation policy, and that expanding liability would force market consolidation, raise shipping costs, harm small businesses, and disrupt supply chain efficiency without improving safety.
The order follows a previous order that will see the pending delivery of 70 Tier 4 units built in Texas by Wabtec, and also the purchase of 100 more Wabtec Tier 4 locomotives built in Texas in 2025.
More specifically, in January, CPKC expects to receive the first two of 70 Wabtec Evolution Series ET44AC Tier 4 locomotives being built this year for CPKC at the company's manufacturing facility in Dallas, Texas. And in the second half of 2026, CPKC expects to take delivery of 30 new EMD SD70ACe-T4 Tier 4 freight locomotives to be manufactured at Progress Rail's facility in Muncie, Indiana. These locomotives are part of an order for 65 new Tier 4 locomotives to be built by Progress Rail.
"Our purchase of additional new Tier 4 locomotives, proudly made in the USA, continues CPKC's commitment to renew our locomotive fleet through a more than US$800 million investment in American manufacturing capacity," said Mark Redd, CPKC Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "We are investing in our road locomotive fleet for growth and to maintain our industry-leading service for our customers and the North American economy, powered by a fleet with improved reliability and fuel efficiency."
Login
