Editor’s note: Stefan Paul, CEO of Kuehne+Nagel attended the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos in January with a focus on emergin technologies. In this blog post, he shares how the company is implementing agentic AI into their digital capabilities to stay on the leading edge of logistics. While his reflections aren’t directed specifically at the semiconductor industry, they certainly can be applied to improve logistics for one of the world’s most sensitive and complex industries.
Reflecting on an exciting week at Davos, one image remains vivid in my memory. Perhaps some of you saw it on TV, in the newspaper, or even live on-site: Agentic AI was one of the trending topics presented in word and image.
Agentic AI as the future-maker
Celebrated as a turning point in artificial intelligence, the Harvard Business Review elaborates: “It refers to AI systems and models that can act autonomously to achieve goals without the need for constant human guidance.”
I would describe it this way: Unlike early-generation AI, which mostly handles single-step tasks, such as providing answers to specific questions, agentic AI can autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems by observing, planning, and executing. Both forms of AI have distinct roles and capabilities, making them powerful tools in their respective domains.
But is it more than just hype and what role does it play in logistics?
First and foremost, we are confident that agentic AI will not become the next blockchain of logistics – fading away quietly – but will instead make a significant impact. Why? Because it is a versatile technology that can be applied in various fields. Agentic AI can be used for planning a trip, managing supply chains, or providing personalized customer service. It can be integrated with other technologies to create even more powerful solutions. And, last but not least: It complements human interaction.
Our teams are already trialing the first promising use cases. Particularly in customer service, agentic AI can showcase its strengths. It is not about replacing the “human agent” but rather supporting them.
At Kuehne+Nagel, already today, we collect around 3 billion IoT messages tracked by sensors, we exchange 2 billion business-to-business messages and half a billion application programming interface (API) messages with our customers and partners per year. With agentic AI, we can become more responsive accepting inquiries 24/7 around the clock and the globe – even multiple ones simultaneously.
This reduces wait times and increases efficiency for us, our customers, and partners. While shipment tracking and real-time visibility are already part of our solutions offering, agentic AI could alert our customers about any potential disruptions based on traffic patterns, weather conditions, or any other events, and proactively adjust delivery schedules to find the most efficient routes. This will allow our customers to increase their operational efficiency and ultimately this will support them to serve their customers better.
At Kuehne+Nagel, we are pioneering agentic AI in logistics. We see the implementation of agentic AI into our processes as a natural evolution of our digital ecosystem and the way how we connect our business with our partners. We are convinced that with agentic AI we will offer our customers an even better service and simultaneously enhance the roles of our logistics experts, shifting their focus increasingly to strategic planning, decision-making, and relationship management.
