Descartes Systems Group has launched an AI agent that is embedded in its global trade intelligence platform and that helps users to research and analyze shipment data by asking questions in natural language.
The company said that the Descartes Datamyne AI Agent can reduce the time needed to research and analyze global trade data by up to 90%, but results vary depending on the user’s experience and complexity of the query.
The agent is embedded within the Datamyne platform and can return answers and visualizations and can provide access to the underlying shipment records used to support its findings, Descartes said in a Sept. 24 announcement.
The goal is to decrease some of the manual effort that has traditionally been involved in researching Datamyne. Users don’t need to learn specific query structures or build database filters. They can simply ask questions in everyday language and let the agent analyze the relevant trade data.
Queries may include suppliers, buyers, commodities, shipment activity and trade relationships. The agent takes care of those requests and provides contextual responses, visualizations and access to the shipment records that support the results, Descartes said.
AI based on specialized trade data
The new tool is based on the underlying Datamyne database. According to Descartes, the platform adds more than 500 million shipment records per year and covers 230 markets.
Companies can use that information to identify suppliers, monitor competitors, assess trade risks and track changes in flows of products and market demand.
The AI agent is also designed for future research . Users can further refine their questions and drill down into related companies, commodities, shipments and trade relationships, all without leaving the Datamyne environment.
Ken Wood, executive vise president of product management at Descartes, said the system is designed to combine AI capabilities with specialized trade data and also give users access to the evidence for why it came up with its conclusions.
“The Agent analyzes shipment level data and delivers findings backed up with records and visual evidence,” Wood said in a statement.
A big component of the product is that focus on traceability. Rather than serving as a general purpose conversation AI, the agent relies on top of Datamyne’s proprietary shipment data and can enable users to look into the records backing up the information it provides.
The move is part of a broader trend in freight and logistics tech, as companies are embedding AI into existing software platforms and proprietary data sets, rather than relying only on standalone general-purpose chatbots.
The result for Descartes is a conversational interface built right on top of Datamyne’s global trade intelligence capabilities.
“By embedding the Agent directly into Descartes Datamyne, customers will benefit from a more transparent and intuitive way to accelerate their decision-making and respond more effectively to the evolving global trade environment,” said Wood.
The agent also can generate summary reports that pinpoint trends, anomalies and potential sourcing opportunities from massive volumes of trade data, the company said.
Descartes Boosts AI Offerings
The Datamyne launch is part of a larger rollout of artificial intelligence across Descartes’ logistics software.
In August, the company launched AI-powered image document management capabilities designed to enable customs brokers, freight forwarders and logistics service providers to extract information from trade documents and prepare data for customs and transportation processes.
Earlier this month, for example, the company launched an AI-enabled Free Trade Intelligence solution to help manufacturers, importers and exporters identify opportunities to reduce trade costs.
The Datamyne announcement comes on the heels of the release of Descartes’ annual transportation management benchmark survey. The company said the survey found investment in transportation technology has nearly doubled in the past decade.
The next phase of transportation tech adoption will partly depend on how well companies can scale automation and artificial intelligence, Descartes said.
It saves 90% of the time . There is a caveat.
Descartes claimed that research and analysis time could be cut by as much as 90 percent, but the company did not say in its announcement how it arrived at that figure.
It also hedged its claim, saying that real-world results depend on the user’s experience and the complexity of the query.
The value of the distinction is that the time savings might be very different for simple searches versus more complex trade-data investigations.
However, the integration provides freight, logistics and supply chain teams with another way to interact with specialized shipment information. Users may ask natural language questions, instead of just using traditional database queries, but still access the underlying trade records.
Why It Matters
Descartes’ latest launch shows how AI is being integrated into existing logistics data platforms, not operating in isolation from them. The Datamyne AI Agent provides trade and supply chain teams with an easy, conversational way to parse through mountains of shipment data, spot patterns and explore commercial relationships, while keeping the data underlying the findings readily available.
