AI in Logistics: 3 Lessons from the Stratify Executive Forum 2025
- Peter Qian
- Sep 24
- 3 min read
On September 24th, 2025, the Stratify Executive Forum brought together a select group of senior supply chain leaders for candid conversations on the future of logistics and automation. Hosted by Designed Conveyor Systems, the forum served as a rare opportunity for decision-makers to exchange ideas behind closed doors.
With global supply chains under pressure from rising labor costs, volatile demand, and tighter margins, the forum offered a rare chance to step back and ask: What role will AI play in solving these challenges?
Ventus AI CEO Peter Qian joined this conversation, sharing candid lessons from real deployments of AI agents in logistics. His message was clear: AI is not about flashy demos — it’s about delivering reliable, measurable value in the field.
Why Is AI in Logistics Important Now?
For decades, logistics companies have battled the same challenges: high labor intensity, endless spreadsheets, legacy systems, and a shortage of skilled talent. While technology has transformed other industries, logistics has often been left behind — weighed down by complexity and resistance to change.
AI is beginning to shift that. The ability to automate repetitive workflows, capture tribal knowledge, and process large volumes of data in real time is creating new opportunities for logistics providers to cut costs and boost resilience.
But as Peter shared at Stratify, the path isn’t simple. Success requires humility, experimentation, and the right guardrails.
Lesson 1: Simple Tasks Aren’t Simple
At first glance, workflows like routing or billing look like basic data entry. But in practice, they are riddled with exceptions:
Carrier preferences that only certain staff know.
Customer-specific rules buried in email threads.
Edge cases that never make it into SOPs.
Peter shared the story of a global 3PL in the beauty sector. The project began with the goal of automating routing across multiple retailer portals. But what looked like a “simple” task quickly turned into a maze of undocumented rules and exceptions.
The breakthrough came when Ventus AI agents were paired with human operators to gradually capture tribal knowledge, case by case. What nearly failed became a success — but only through patience and iteration.
Takeaway: even “simple” logistics tasks often hide deep complexity. Automating them requires close collaboration with the people who know the process best.
Lesson 2: Why Accuracy Matters in AI for Supply Chains
AI agents can achieve impressive automation rates — often exceeding 97%. But as Peter pointed out, 97% isn’t enough in logistics.
Why? Because one error in a routing decision, billing calculation, or compliance form can ripple across a supply chain — costing time, money, and customer trust.
In an intermodal provider case study, AI agents cut billing time by 30×, freeing staff from tedious data entry. But reliability only came once guardrails were added:
Multi-agent verification ensured cross-checks at every step.
Human-in-the-loop review caught edge cases and high-risk transactions.
Exception escalation kept operators in control of critical decisions.
Takeaway: raw accuracy isn’t the goal. Resilience is. AI adoption must build in verification layers and keep people in the loop.
Lesson 3: Why Curiosity Beats Expertise in AI Adoption
AI is often mystified, but Peter compared it to computers in the 1990s. Back then, companies didn’t succeed because they hired the world’s best “computer scientists” — they succeeded because they were curious, hands-on, and willing to experiment.
The same is true today. Logistics leaders shouldn’t wait until they feel like “AI experts.” Instead, progress comes from:
Running pilots.
Capturing small wins.
Iterating based on frontline feedback.
Takeaway: Curiosity creates momentum. And in an industry as complex as logistics, momentum is everything.
What Are Real-World Examples of AI in Logistics?
The lessons Peter shared weren’t theoretical — they came from live deployments:
Intermodal provider: AI agents logged into multiple portals, booked transport, and reduced billing workload by 30×.
Global 3PL: 97% of shipments routed automatically across retailer portals, with exceptions reliably escalated for human review.
These aren’t “demo wins.” They are operational shifts that free staff to focus on customer service, problem-solving, and higher-value work.
What Is the Future of AI in Logistics?
The Stratify Executive Forum underscored a key truth: AI will only transform logistics if it balances automation, accuracy, and human insight.
For Ventus AI, the work is just beginning. The conversations Peter joined at Stratify reflect a broader trend: logistics leaders are moving past AI hype and asking the harder questions — how do we make it work reliably, at scale, in the messiness of real supply chains?
👉 Ventus will be sharing more insights from Stratify and other industry forums in the weeks ahead. Subscribe for updates, or book a demo to see how AI in logistics automation can transform your operations.
