FreighAI
FreighAI · If you run Descartes
Coming from

Running Descartes? Keep it, or move on.

Keep your TMS for the records. FreighAI runs the work around them.

Descartes sells a great deal of software. This page takes one part of it and stays there: the broker and forwarder enterprise stack. Keep that stack and FreighAI works the email around it. Or move on from it and FreighAI becomes your main system.

Every email your company receives is read, understood and turned into a task for the right person, with the answer already drafted. Your team approves. Nobody lives in the inbox any more.

app.freighai.com/tasks
Tasks
MANAGE AND COMPLETE YOUR PENDING TASKS
AUTO-REFRESH · 7s
QUOTE PREP
1tasks
1 DUE
CUSTOMER RESPONSE
7tasks
4 OVERDUE3 DUE
PROVIDER & BOOKING
13tasks
10 OVERDUE3 DUE
DOCS & HANDOFF
1tasks
1 OVERDUE
All TypesAll StatusAll Assigned📅 From → To
▾ Provider & Booking13 ACTIVE
TYPEREFCOMPANYSLA
Booking Data ReviewJO-02383New Client (c/o Aarav Sharma)25m 16s
Info Request ReviewJO-02382SOLORA FREIGHT SERVICES LLC24m 22s
Info Request ReviewJO-02380Vendari Design & Display5m 40s
Info Request ReviewJO-02378New Client (c/o Sunita R.)7m 29s
Info Request ReviewJO-02376Tideline Shipping LLC18m 26s
Booking Data ReviewJO-02371MK HOTEL SUPPLIES L.L.C44m 56s
Read this first
  1. 01There are two ways in, and this page covers both. Keep the Descartes broker and forwarder enterprise stack and add FreighAI around it, or move on from it and make FreighAI your main system. That stack is all this page covers. Descartes makes far more, and the rest sits outside it.
  2. 02That stack holds the operating record: the shipment file from quotation to document distribution, one rate database for ocean, air and land, customs declarations and security filings, the books, and a branded customer portal. If it runs your business, keep it.
  3. 03Descartes ships AI, and this page says so first. MacroPoint OpsForce is published as a suite of AI agents for freight visibility, and Descartes also publishes AI Assist for Trade Compliance. Neither is described as part of the forwarder TMS.
  4. 04Descartes' own quote-speed claim is stronger than any number FreighAI may use. Descartes publishes Descartes Spot as helping freight forwarders deliver 90% of customer quotes in under 30 seconds. Where that clock starts is our reading, not Descartes' wording: a request already structured, in Global Price Management or entered through self-service quoting.
  5. 05The hour before that is the part nobody has taken. Following one enquiry thread out of pricing@, emailing your own agents for a lane your database does not hold, and drafting the customer reply for approval are not described in Descartes’s published material, checked September 2026.
  6. 06FreighAI works that hour instead of your people. A finished task lands on the right desk with a name on it, and the only step left is approval. No Descartes connector is live and none is claimed here. We scope the first workflow, integration requirements and implementation plan with your team.
Your day, as it is now

The Descartes stack already holds the record

Descartes groups ten solutions under broker and forwarder enterprise systems, and every one is sold to the person we sell to: a forwarder, an NVOCC or a customs broker. Forwarder Enterprise QW is described as a back-office solution for small to mid-sized logistics operations, cloud based and multi-language, handling multi-leg, multi-mode and door-to-door shipments. OneView Forwarder Enterprise performs all ocean import and export functions from quotation to booking to document distribution.

Pricing sits in Global Price Management: one global database of ocean, air and land rates, a direct connection to providers that receives contracts and updates automatically, ocean allocation management, mark-up logic and self-service quoting. That is a serious rate engine, and nothing here asks you to give it up.

So the record is covered. Now look at the part of a Tuesday that never reaches any of it until a person carries it there. An enquiry lands in pricing@ at ten past three: three pallets, Rotterdam to Jebel Ali, cargo ready Monday, dimensions in an attached packing list, no gross weight, and a lane your rate database does not hold. Somebody reads it, writes back for the weight, emails four agents, remembers on Thursday that two never answered, then answers the customer who says the number is high. A booking confirmation arrives in operations@ and somebody types it into the shipment file. A carrier bill arrives in accounts@ and somebody matches it airway bill by airway bill.

None of that is a criticism of Descartes. It is work that happens in an inbox, before a system of record has anything to hold. Ask it of your own week:

  • How many enquiries arrive as free text, with the weight or the terms missing?
  • How many lanes must be priced by an agent because the database does not carry them?
  • Who chases the agent who has not replied by Thursday morning?
  • How many hands does a thread pass through before a Descartes record exists?
Today
The inboxpricing@, operations@, tracking@, accounts@

Enquiries, agent rate replies, booking confirmations and carrier bills arrive here first, as free text with attachments.

FreighAIThe hour before a record exists

Reads the thread, asks for what is missing, chases your agents, and hands a named task to the right department.

DescartesThe system of record

The shipment file and its documents, the rate database and allocations, customs declarations, the books and the customer portal.

Nothing is sent and nothing moves on until a person approves it.
Read it from the top down. The enquiry lands in a mailbox. FreighAI does the hour of work behind it. The Descartes stack holds what comes out.
What changes

What changes around the stack?

FreighAI works those mailboxes instead of your people. It watches every company mailbox, pricing, operations, tracking and accounts, and follows each conversation from start to finish. It works out what each email is and what it needs, then takes the action that message calls for. Follow-ups, chasers and reminders happen on their own, on the same conversation. Your people work in FreighAI, not in the inbox.

The email is only the start. The real time goes on what comes after it. Find the rate on the carrier’s site. Check the tracking in another tab. Open the TMS for the job. Look up what you charged this customer last time. Forward it to operations and wait. Chase the agent, or forget to. FreighAI does all of that itself. It pulls your rate cards, checks the carrier, looks up the customer’s history, reads the shipment status, and talks to your TMS or accounting system. It chases what has not come back. It passes the work from pricing to operations to accounts, with the email and everything it found attached. Nobody forwards it. Nobody re-keys it. Nobody asks for an update. Then it puts the finished piece in front of the right person, with the reply already written.

Your people work in FreighAI. Not in the inbox. Not in five browser tabs. The Descartes record is still the record.

One thread
Inbox · thread
logistics@customer.com
Ocean quote — Rotterdam to Jebel Ali, 3 pallets
Three pallets Rotterdam to Jebel Ali, cargo ready Monday.
Dimensions are in the attached packing list. Weight to follow.
We need an all-in number today, we are comparing forwarders.
Task · assignedDrafted
Approve the Jebel Ali quote
Your pricer · Pricing
MissingGross weight asked for on the same thread
LaneNot in your rate database, so four agents were emailed
ChasedThe two who had not answered by Thursday morning
Waiting onYour approval. The reply goes out in your name
Your team approves. The reply goes out in their name.
Approved. Operations takes it on with the thread attached, and the agreed hand-off carries the result into Descartes.
The same enquiry twice: the email as it arrived, and the task as it reaches a desk with the agent replies already turned into a price.
MONDAY · 09:145 RFQS · 3 PEOPLE
MOHAMED · APEIRON CARGO09:14

need DHL quote Gurugram → Ajman, 72kg, by Friday. express.

packing list attached. urgent pls 🙏

packing-list.pdf
FW: RFQ EXPRESS GUR → AUH

Pls quote for shipment as below. Confirmed pkg dims attached, IEC docs to follow…

HANDWRITTEN · PHOTO ATTACHED
Gurugram → Ajman
72 kg · 2 boxes
need by Friday!
RATE-SHEET-Q4.XLSX
DXB · LH · 425
DXB · FX · 460
DXB · ARM · 410
FOUR FORMATS · ONE CUSTOMER · FOUR PEOPLE READING IT
THE FIRST WORKFLOW

The enquiry before Global Price Management has anything to price

It arrives as free text with a packing list attached, on a lane your rate database may not hold. This is where it lands in FreighAI: read, sorted and owned, with the missing weight already asked for and the agent RFQ already gone out.

  • Read, not queued
    Works out what each email is and what it needs, then takes the action that message calls for.
  • Any format it arrives in
    Reads PDF, Excel, Word, forwarded email, WhatsApp messages, photos and scans.
  • Assigned to a person
    Writes the reply, creates the task, and puts it in front of the right person in the right department, beside the original conversation.
Two ways in

Keep Descartes, or move on.

You can keep the system you run today and add FreighAI around it, or move on from it and let FreighAI be your main system. Start with pricing and operations either way, and add the rest when you are ready.

Keep Descartes. Add FreighAI around it.

The Descartes record stays the record. FreighAI works the hour before it exists: the free-text enquiry, the lane you do not hold, the agent chase and the drafted reply.

What this looks like
  • The forwarder TMS keeps the shipment file, its documents and the billing.
  • Global Price Management keeps your contracts, allocations and mark-up rules.
  • Customs Compliance keeps your declarations and security filings. FreighAI does nothing there.
  • FreighAI reads pricing@, operations@, tracking@ and accounts@, and hands a named task to the right desk.
  • No Descartes connector is live, so what passes between the two is agreed in scope.

Move on from Descartes. FreighAI becomes your main system.

If the stack is more than your business needs, FreighAI can be your main system instead. Start with pricing and operations, then bring the accounts across. Several things still have to sit somewhere else.

What you stop using
  • The quoting screens for enquiries that arrive as email. FreighAI reads, prices and drafts the reply.
  • Job and booking records, created once a quote is won.
  • Tracking answers for customers who reply to the last email instead of opening the Shipment Portal.
  • Carrier bill checking, and the payment follow-up after it.
  • The day-to-day accounts.
What you still need somewhere
  • Customs filing. FreighAI does not lodge declarations, security filings or duty lookups, so those stay with Descartes or your broker.
  • A contracted rate database. Global Price Management holds carrier contracts, ocean allocations and mark-up rules, and FreighAI holds none of that.
  • Multi-divisional statutory accounting. Bank reconciliation, accruals and provisions stay with your accountant.
  • Warehousing and purchase-order management, if you run them inside the stack.
  • A portal customers log in to. FreighAI answers the ones who write to you.
  • MacroPoint tracking coverage, milestone confirmation and proof of delivery. FreighAI works the pricing and operations mailbox instead.
How to decide
  1. How long have you run the Descartes stack?

    A fresh go-live is best left alone. If the stack has been in place for years and nobody in the office defends it, price the second door properly.

  2. Where does your team actually spend the day?

    Follow one thread from Monday. A day spent inside Descartes screens argues for keeping it. A day spent in pricing@, with the result typed in afterwards, argues for moving on.

  3. What would you lose?

    Name the parts only Descartes gives you: declarations, the rate database, the books, the portal, the warehouse. Every one of them needs a home. A long list is a reason to stay.

  4. What should you ask about your contract and your data?

    Three questions for your Descartes account manager, asked before you decide, not after: when does the term end, what notice do you owe, and how do you get your own data out?

On its own, FreighAI runs your enquiries, quotes, jobs, tracking replies, carrier bills, payment follow-ups and your accounts. FreighAI does not file customs declarations. It treats customs as a service provider or agent, and your team adds and updates the filing details by hand.

The parts you would use

Which parts of FreighAI would a Descartes team use?

Quotation Agent

The enquiry arrives by email or WhatsApp, on a lane Global Price Management may not hold. FreighAI spots what is missing in an enquiry and drafts the email asking for it. It emails all your agents for a lane in one go, with the route and charge lines filled in, then chases the ones who do not reply. When the customer pushes back on price, a counter-offer is drafted and waits for approval. Global Price Management stays your contract, allocation and mark-up store. FreighAI works the thread either side of it.

Booking and Job Orders Agent

A won quote becomes a job on its own, fully filled in. A booking confirmation landing in operations@ becomes a task for whoever owns the thread, rather than being read once and typed again. What the Descartes shipment file needs from that job is settled in scope.

Tracking Agent

FreighAI answers “where is my cargo?” on the customer’s own thread, from carrier status, for approval. The Shipment Portal already serves the customer who logs in. This is for the customer who simply replies to the last email instead.

Invoice Reconciliation

FreighAI reads a carrier bill and matches every airway bill back to its job, checking line by line before it is booked. Descartes Accounting and Billing keeps the books, the billing and the financial reporting. Where the matched result lands is a scoping question.

Begin with the enquiry that still gets priced by hand. No team needs every part of FreighAI for the first workflow to be worth doing.

One enquiry, start to finish

What happens to one enquiry

Quotation comes first here, because the enquiry is the piece a Descartes team still works by hand long before anything reaches Global Price Management.

An enquiry arrives. FreighAI reads it, notices the weight is missing and asks for it. It pulls your rate cards, checks the carrier for a live rate, and emails your agents for the lanes you do not hold, then chases them until they reply. It drafts the quote with your margin rules and what that customer paid on that lane last time. Your pricer approves and it goes. It follows up. When the customer pushes back, the counter-offer is already drafted. When the quote is old, it expires. When it is won, the job is created.

Where the rate can be fetched without waiting on a person — a carrier API, a portal read in the background, or your own uploaded rate cards — a priced quote goes out in 10–15 minutes instead of 1–2 hours. That holds for ocean and air just as it does for express; the mode does not change it. Where a lane has to be priced by another agent or over the phone, the wait belongs to whoever is answering — not to the software. FreighAI still writes the RFQ, chases the reply, and turns whatever comes back into a priced, margin-checked quote the moment it lands.

The scope then decides what approved information belongs in the Descartes record and how it gets there. Nothing here assumes a connection or a written field. We scope the first workflow, integration requirements and implementation plan with your team.

The screen it ends on
A
Marco · Cascadia Cargo
online · whatsapp business

need DHL quote Gurugram → Ajman, 72kg, by Friday. urgent pls 🙏

09:14

Hi Marco — DHL Express, AED 425 + AED 35 handling. ETA Thu·18:00, valid 24h. PDF attached.

09:22
SAME THREAD · NO PORTAL · NO NEW LOGINREPLIED · 8 MIN
First workflow
    1. 01Enquiry emailFree text into pricing@, packing list attached
    2. 02Reads itAsks for the gross weight nobody sent
    3. 03RatesYour rate cards, your carrier account, four agents chased
    4. 04Drafted quoteWritten on the thread it arrived on
    1. GATEYour pricer approves
    2. 06Follow-upAnd the counter-offer when the number is pushed back
    3. 07Global Price ManagementContracts, allocations and mark-up rules
    4. 08Forwarder TMSShipment file, documents, customs and billing
FreighAIDescartesYour team approves
Enquiry email → the missing gross weight asked for → your rate cards and carrier account checked, your agents emailed and chased → drafted quote written on the thread → your pricer approves → follow-up and counter-offer → contracts and allocations stay in Global Price Management → the shipment file and the billing stay in the Descartes forwarder TMS.
Attributed customer result
60+ → ~15 min
Average response time
35% → 73%
Quote win rate

At Infinity Logistics, average response time fell from more than 60 minutes to about 15 minutes, and the win rate rose from 35% to 73%. Those are one customer’s attributed results, not a promise to every business.

The boundary

What stays in Descartes, what FreighAI adds and what must be scoped?

  1. The shipment file
    Stays in Descartes
    Quotation to booking to document distribution, ocean and air, import and export
    FreighAI adds
    The email that creates the file and the email that closes it
    Decision required
    Which record anchors the first workflow?
  2. Rates, contracts and allocations
    Stays in Descartes
    Global Price Management: one global database for ocean, air and land, with contracts from providers, allocations and mark-up logic
    FreighAI adds
    The lane you do not hold. The agent RFQ sent, the chase, and the reply turned into a priced line
    Decision required
    Which rate sources should the demonstration cover?
  3. Quoting speed
    Stays in Descartes
    Descartes publishes Descartes Spot as helping freight forwarders deliver 90% of customer quotes in under 30 seconds. On our reading, from a structured request
    FreighAI adds
    The unstructured hour before it. The email read, the missing weight asked for, the unheld lane sourced from your agents
    Decision required
    Which enquiries arrive structured, and which arrive as email?
  4. The enquiry thread and its follow-up
    Stays in Descartes
    The Descartes CRM: requirements recorded, follow-ups set, quotes emailed out through Outlook, acceptance tracked
    FreighAI adds
    Reads the enquiry, drafts the quote and the counter-offer and follows up on the same thread. Reading incoming mail into a quotation and drafting a reply that waits for approval are not described in Descartes’s published material, checked September 2026
    Decision required
    What starts the workflow, and which follow-ups move?
  5. Customs filing
    Stays in Descartes
    Declarations, advance security filings worldwide, foreign trade zone filing, and AI Assist for Trade Compliance
    FreighAI adds
    Nothing at all. Declarations, duty and HS lookup stay with Descartes
    Decision required
    Does the workflow need to see filing status?
  6. Accounting and billing
    Stays in Descartes
    Multi-divisional accounting, financial reporting and billing for forwarders, brokers and NVOCCs
    FreighAI adds
    Reads a carrier bill and matches every airway bill back to its job, checking line by line before it is booked.
    Decision required
    Where does the matched result land?
  7. Visibility and the portal
    Stays in Descartes
    The Shipment Portal: one login onto shipments and United States and Canadian customs entries
    FreighAI adds
    Answers on the customer’s own thread, from carrier status, for approval
    Decision required
    Who approves a tracking reply?
  8. AI already in the portfolio
    Stays in Descartes
    MacroPoint OpsForce AI agents for tracking coverage, milestone confirmation and proof of delivery
    FreighAI adds
    Works the pricing and operations mailbox instead. The two do not meet
    Decision required
    Do you already run MacroPoint, and on which lanes?
  9. Connections between the two
    Stays in Descartes
    APIs that interface Global Price Management data with a TMS or a CRM
    FreighAI adds
    Nothing is claimed. No Descartes connector is live. We scope the first workflow, integration requirements and implementation plan with your team.
    Decision required
    Which objects, which direction, whose credentials?
  10. Hand-offs between departments
    Stays in Descartes
    The Descartes screens each department already works in
    FreighAI adds
    Work passes from pricing to operations to accounts with the email and everything it found attached. Nobody forwards it, re-keys it or asks for an update.
    Decision required
    Which hand-off comes first?

Read this table as the outline of a scoping conversation, not as a list of Descartes connections.

The honest distinction

Where is the request when the clock starts?

Descartes publishes Descartes Spot as helping freight forwarders deliver 90% of customer quotes in under 30 seconds. Take that at face value. Descartes does not say where the clock starts. Our reading is that it starts on a request already in structured form: a lane, a load and a ready date, sitting in Global Price Management or entered through self-service quoting. From there a rate database holding contracts, allocations and mark-up rules can answer fast.

A forwarder's problem sits upstream of that. The request arrives as an email: free text, a packing list as a PDF, no gross weight, and a lane the database may not carry. Nothing can be priced in thirty seconds because nothing has been structured yet. Somebody has to read it, ask for what is missing, and go out to agents for the number.

That hour is the work FreighAI does, and it is a different job from the one Global Price Management does. You keep your own carrier accounts and negotiated rates. FreighAI never sits between you and your carrier relationship.

Three starting points
Start here

Where is the request when the clock starts?

PATH 01Already structuredIn the system

Global Price Management prices it from contracted rates, allocations and your mark-up rules, at the Descartes Spot speed.

PATH 02An email, lane heldRate on file

FreighAI reads the thread, asks for the missing weight, prices from your rate cards and your carrier account, and drafts the reply for approval.

PATH 03An email, lane not heldNo contracted rate

FreighAI emails your agents for the lane in one go, chases the ones who go quiet, and turns what comes back into a priced quote.

Three starting points. The first is the one the Descartes claim describes. The other two are what actually lands in pricing@.
In fairness

What the Descartes stack does that FreighAI does not

A coexistence page is only useful if it is honest about the other side. Six things in the Descartes stack have no FreighAI equivalent.

  • A rate database receiving carrier contracts and updates directly, with ocean allocations and mark-up logic on top.
  • Customs declarations and advance security filings as a product, including foreign trade zone filing.
  • Multi-divisional accounting, billing and financial reporting for forwarders, brokers and NVOCCs.
  • A branded portal showing shipments and U.S. and Canadian Customs entries under one login.
  • Warehousing and purchase-order management inside the same stack as the shipment file.
  • Published AI of its own: the MacroPoint OpsForce agents, and AI Assist for Trade Compliance.

FreighAI's own limits read the same on every page and do not move. Direct customs filing and HS or duty lookup, statutory books, customer self-service portals, and full warehouse and fleet management all stay in your system. That is why a Descartes team keeps Descartes.

Fair questions

The objections we hear most

01

“Descartes Spot does 90% of quotes in under 30 seconds. What is left to do?”

The quotes that were already structured. That claim is Descartes' own, published for Descartes Spot. Where the clock starts is our reading, not theirs. An enquiry that arrives as a paragraph of email with a packing list attached is not in the system yet. Reading it, asking for the missing weight, sourcing an unheld lane and drafting the reply is what FreighAI does.

02

“Descartes already publishes AI agents. Why add another AI?”

They work in different places. MacroPoint OpsForce is published as a suite of AI agents for freight visibility: tracking coverage, restarting tracking that stops, confirming uncertain milestones and collecting proof of delivery. AI Assist for Trade Compliance works on screening. Working an operations mailbox is not described in Descartes’s published material, checked September 2026.

03

“Which Descartes are you actually talking about?”

Broker & Forwarder Enterprise Systems, and nothing else. Descartes publishes seven other solution categories: B2B Connectivity & Messaging, Customs & Regulatory Compliance, Ecommerce Operations, Global Trade Intelligence, Fleet Performance Management, Transportation Management and Global Logistics Network. They are sold to different buyers and this page argues with none of them.

04

“Do you make us throw Descartes out?”

No. You can keep the system you run today and add FreighAI around it, or move on from it and let FreighAI be your main system. Start with pricing and operations either way, and add the rest when you are ready. On its own, FreighAI runs your enquiries, quotes, jobs, tracking replies, carrier bills, payment follow-ups and your accounts. Declarations, the contracted rate database and the statutory books stay with Descartes either way.

05

“Is there a finished Descartes connector?”

No, and no universal claim is made. Descartes publishes APIs that interface Global Price Management data with a TMS or a CRM, so the technical conversation has somewhere to begin. What FreighAI reads or returns is written down for the chosen workflow, with its objects, direction, access and limits. We scope the first workflow, integration requirements and implementation plan with your team.

06

“How quickly can we go live?”

That depends on the workflow, the access, the sample data and what the connection has to support. FreighAI publishes no fixed pilot length and no go-live promise. The implementation plan follows the scope.

Questions

Common questions

01

Can FreighAI be my main system instead of Descartes?

On its own, FreighAI runs your enquiries, quotes, jobs, tracking replies, carrier bills, payment follow-ups and your accounts. FreighAI does not file customs declarations. It treats customs as a service provider or agent, and your team adds and updates the filing details by hand. Declarations and security filings stay with Descartes or your broker.

02

Do we have to move data out of Descartes?

Not automatically. A first workflow may need only selected current context, or it may run beside Descartes on its own. Anything that has to move is named and justified during scope. The Descartes shipment file stays authoritative.

03

Can FreighAI write back into the Descartes forwarder TMS?

That answer comes from the confirmed scope for the chosen workflow. This page invents no read or write behaviour. Descartes publishes APIs for interfacing Global Price Management data with a TMS or a CRM, which is where the conversation starts.

04

What happens to Global Price Management?

It stays where it is and keeps doing what it does. Your contracts, your allocations, your mark-up rules and your fast structured quotes all live in it. FreighAI holds no rate database in its place. It works the enquiries that arrive before anything can be looked up.

05

We already pay for the Descartes CRM. Will this duplicate it?

It should not, and the boundary table is where you check. The Descartes CRM is described as handling the quotation process: requirements recorded, follow-ups set, quotes emailed out through Outlook and acceptance tracked. FreighAI starts a step earlier, on the enquiry nobody has opened yet.

06

Does a person still approve every reply?

Yes. Your team approves every reply before it sends. Your team approves. They do not compose, forward, file or chase. The reply goes out in their name. Chasing, tracking checks, quote expiry and follow-ups run on their own. Nobody has to remember. The supervision rules for each workflow are set during the demonstration.

07

Which workflow should a Descartes team start with?

Start where the work arrives as email and waits for somebody. The unheld lane priced by agents is the usual candidate. Booking confirmations retyped into the shipment file, tracking questions and carrier bills are the other three worth timing.

Sources

Descartes' scale figures and its customer counts are recorded in the evidence sheet and deliberately not repeated. The one Descartes number this page carries is the Descartes Spot quote claim, because the argument turns on it. Any gap noted above describes only what Descartes had published on 3 September 2026.

READY WHEN YOU ARE

Bring the enquiry that never reached Global Price Management

Pick one thread from last week: a free-text enquiry on a lane you do not hold, an agent rate reply, a booking confirmation or a carrier bill. We will show what FreighAI would have read, asked for, chased and drafted, and what stays in Descartes.