Logistics and transportation

Much of freight still runs on email. C.H. Robinson receives tens of thousands of customer emails a day, and many routine requests, such as price quotes, could wait hours before an employee reached them.

Requests come in many forms: truckload, less-than-truckload, intermodal and air freight each need different details, and planners must also choose carriers, routes and rates for inbound and outbound loads.

In the EU, transport is one of the sectors covered by NIS2, so operators must manage cyber risk and report significant incidents.¹²

Microsoft groups transport under Microsoft for Mobility, whose connected fleets scenario combines Azure messaging services, Azure Maps, Microsoft Fabric, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. For planning and execution, transportation management in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management helps identify routes and rates for inbound and outbound loads, for example the fastest route or the least expensive rate.

C.H. Robinson built its own generative AI tools on Azure AI Foundry (now Microsoft Foundry), Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models, Azure SQL Database and Azure Cosmos DB. They classify incoming emails, assemble the details, identify missing information and carry out the steps a person would take, with a human feedback loop. A key account manager says quote time fell from hours to an average of 32 seconds. In April 2025 the company said its agents had performed over 3 million shipping tasks, from quotes and orders to capacity, appointments and tracking; that release does not mention Microsoft.

A smaller forwarder with modest email volume may get further with shared mailboxes, templates and its TMS's own automation. Agents pay off when request volume is high, request types repeat and the TMS has APIs the agent can call.¹³⁴⁵