What AI does today — and what it does not
AI in logistics is usually written about in the future tense. This is what actually runs.
Three things work, three limits come with them
Every capability has a boundary, and the boundary is the interesting part. An agent without boundaries is not a more powerful agent — it is one whose mistakes you notice only once they are booked.
An agent without boundaries is not a more capable agent. It is one whose mistakes you notice only once they are posted.
Reading documents
Consignment notes, invoices, order emails — even without a known layout. Limit: handwriting. A human guesses there too.
Spotting anomalies
The trip outside the pattern. The customer whose behaviour tips. Limit: the model finds. Why, comes from a phone call.
Making suggestions
Which carrier, which sequence, which price. Limit: useful as a suggestion, a liability problem as a silent decision.
A carrier invoice arrives — no known template, free layout.
Agentic AI in two sentences
The term gets used for anything that does more than one step. What it actually means fits in two sentences — and the second one, what it does not mean, is the more important of the two.
What it means
The model does not execute one step but assembles a sequence itself, uses tools and checks whether it is making progress.
What it does not mean
That the machine chooses the goal. Which tools, which values, where to stop — the frame still comes from outside.
Legal framework, briefly: the EU AI Act has been enforced since 2 August 2026; the Article 50 transparency duty applies. High-risk obligations were postponed to late 2027 by the Digital Omnibus. What counts now: knowing which system runs where. More on the radar.
A shipment needs a carrier. The goal is set by the dispatcher — not by the model.
Worked example: the consignment note after delivery
The carrier uploads it, nothing gets retyped. Three questions are interesting — and the third finds something nobody looks for when leafing through.
What the machine can do
Read it — reliable on clean paperwork. Detect damage — when the remark is in the field. Check the signatory — a name other than the booked carrier means the trip was passed on.
Context
The third is the sharpest: a human never finds it while leafing through, because they are not looking. The damage check itself is still done by a human today — “can” is not “does”.
The consignment note triggers money both ways: once released the sub-carrier gets credited — and the customer usually pays only once it is on file.
The carrier uploads the consignment note. Nothing is retyped — nor was it before.
Where the best solution sits today
What is named is the pattern, not the vendor — a product name ages, an idea does not.
Bounded autonomy
The pattern that wins in real deployments: clearly defined decision authority, a clean escalation path. Fully autonomous systems mostly do not scale.
Feedback, not output
Hold every result against something — note against order, recommendation against the closed deal. Without that nothing learns, it only emits.
Supply the source
A figure with a provenance can be checked; one without has to be believed. That is the most effective answer to hallucination.