Agents are a good fit for logistics because so much of the work is matching and monitoring: milestones against promises, invoices against rates, documents against each other. The risk is not that an agent matches badly — it is that it acts where a person should decide.
Three lines agents don't cross
- Customs filings and classifications — the broker of record decides
- Carrier payments and claims — finance decides
- Commitments to a customer — new dates, credits or prices — customer service decides
Exhibit 1
Autonomy by kind of work
How we set autonomy in our logistics agent designs
| Kind of work | Typical level | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Monitoring and prediction | L0 · Observe | ETA prediction, SLA sentinel, rate drift |
| Recommendations and drafts | L1–L2 | Back-haul matches, dispute drafts, customer updates |
| Matching within tolerance | L3 · Act within limits | COD remittance and container-status answers |
| Filings, payments, commitments | Never automated | Broker, controller or service lead decides |
Note: From our agent designs.
Personal data on every consignment
Consignee names, phone numbers and addresses, and driver identities, move with every shipment. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, collecting and using them needs a clear purpose and the right controls — which is easier to enforce when the data platform knows what each field is.