Descartes Systems Group has introduced AI-powered Image Document Management that turns commercial invoices, bills of lading and packing lists into data ready for customs and shipment workflows. For logistics providers and shipping companies, the move targets a familiar source of manual work by putting document processing inside the systems already used to manage shipments.
The new capabilities are aimed at customs brokers, freight forwarders and logistics service providers, with logistics-trained AI agents embedded in Descartes’ customs and transportation applications.
The system can process multiple documents linked to the same shipment, extracting and interpreting information before preparing it for customs and transportation transactions. Descartes said this is intended to reduce repetitive data entry, manual corrections and handoffs between separate applications.
The practical issue is particularly relevant when commercial invoices contain hundreds of line items. Manual rekeying across several documents can add work before a shipment is ready for customs processing, while separate document-processing tools can create another system for staff to manage.
“Entering commercial invoice data is one of the most labor-intensive activities in the import process, especially when shipments include complex commercial invoices with hundreds of line items,” said Scott Sangster, General Manager, Logistics Service Providers at Descartes.
“Rather than simply digitizing individual documents, our agentic IDM solution interprets commercial invoices, bills of lading, packing lists and related shipment documents in context. It can extract, validate and prepare data that can immediately begin customs and transportation workflows with significantly fewer exceptions and manual corrections.”
Descartes said its Global Logistics Network allows the capabilities to operate within applications customers already use to create shipments and prepare customs entries. The approach is designed to avoid separate applications and manual transfers between systems.
If information from trade documents can move directly into shipment and customs processes, fewer routine steps remain dependent on staff transferring data between systems.
“While document processing remains one of the largest sources of manual effort in customs brokerage and logistics operations, most customers aren’t looking for another separate AI application to manage documents,” said Ken Wood, Executive Vice President of Product Management at Descartes.
“With our solution, customers can automate one of the most time-consuming aspects of customs and logistics operations through agentic capabilities that are embedded within the Descartes platform they rely on every day.”
