Flexport, a freight forwarding and logistics company, is implementing a new strategy for product releases, with the first wave of AI-powered tools and features announced this week. This marks the beginning of a series of semi-annual product announcements, a move inspired by Airbnb’s approach to seasonal releases.
Flexport founder Ryan Petersen shared that the inspiration for this cadence came directly from Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. Petersen elaborated, explaining, “Brian Chesky told me to do it.” He pointed to the benefits of setting deadlines and creating marketing opportunities. “There’s nothing like the power of a deadline,” Petersen said, “We’ve developed a lot of great technology over the years, but it kind of comes out incrementally. There’s not a lot of fanfare, and buzz, and opportunity to tell the story in ways that customers can see what you’ve done, what you’ve built.”
The company is introducing over 20 products on Monday, many of which were already in internal use. These products leverage AI from OpenAI, Anthropic, and AWS. The announcement marks Petersen’s first full year back as Flexport’s CEO, after he had fired former Amazon executive Dave Clark in late 2023 to “get [Flexport’s] house in order.”
Among the new offerings are Flexport Intelligence, which allows businesses to obtain information about their shipments using natural language prompts. Another, Control Tower, provides customers with “real-time visibility and control over their entire logistics network, even on freight not managed by Flexport,” according to the company. Previously, these tasks were handled by Flexport staff.
This move towards AI-driven automation represents a notable shift for Flexport, especially given Petersen’s concerns about the devaluation of customer relationships under the previous leadership. “This is something we’re really conscious about. I’m still a huge believer in ‘people first,’” Petersen affirmed. He expressed that the company aims to deliver “the best of both worlds” by offering clients both AI-powered tools and the option to consult with a Flexport team member. Petersen anticipates that employing AI will enable Flexport to grow its workforce without the need to replace workers. “I think that the company — and I think it’s going to be us — but the company that does the best job of automating this work will not have less workers. You’ll have more because you’re going to grow so fast. If you’re cheaper than other people, you’re going to need more people than ever to do service, sales, consulting, technology, development, et cetera,” he said.
Flexport also announced the integration of AI-powered voice agents into some internal workflows. Petersen emphasized a cautious rollout of this capability, stating that Flexport is currently testing it with truckers and warehouses using its logistics platform. The AI voice agent calls drivers to inform them of available loads and contacts warehouses to confirm operational details. While acknowledging the usefulness of these agents for rudimentary interactions, Petersen noted he hesitates to expand their use until AI capabilities and reliability improve: “My standard quality bar for making these things customer-facing is really high,” he said. “I think there is a future where customers will be happy talking to an AI if it’s really good at answering their question.”
Petersen indicated a willingness to proceed quickly with AI advancements overall, highlighting the company’s agility in experimenting: “Our teams can look at any place of [customer] pain and find some process that can be done better by an LLM or other form of machine learning, and just do it. And the next day, it’s live, it’s being used by thousands of companies without having to go sign enterprise contracts or beg people,” he said.
