Stop dialing carriers one by one: How Kuehne+Nagel put AI agents on its overnight cold chain calls

Until recently, the overnight shift at Kuehne+Nagel’s Healthcare HyperCare control tower in Costa Rica spent much of the night on the phone. Staff called carriers one by one to confirm temperature readings on pharmaceutical shipments and chase down statuses across time zones, in five different languages.

Today, AI agents make those calls. In the first deployment, the agents completed more than 10,000 status checks, processed over 6,000 emails and handled 78% of connected calls end to end. The team’s capacity rose 47%.

“The goal was simple: stop having skilled people spend their days and nights dialling carriers one by one just to confirm a temperature reading or track down a shipment status,” said Pablo Palafox, CEO of HappyRobot. “Once you remove that repetitive outbound burden, teams can focus on what really matters.”

Kuehne+Nagel isn’t alone. CMA CGM has AI agents opening sales conversations with shippers. DHL has them collecting customs duties. Encompass has AI agents handling customer support calls for price, availability and order status. Each began with one repetitive, high-volume workflow that needed headcount and created bottlenecks. All four companies have since expanded the use of agents. Here’s how each got there, and what their results say about where AI agents belong in supply chain operations today and what they’ll take on next.

This story was originally published by Supply Chain Dive. Read the full story at Supply Chain Dive →