AI freight forwarding software for the UAE and the GCC
A container lands at Jebel Ali, sits in a free zone, is sold to a buyer in another Gulf state and leaves by road. Four rule sets, and a dozen people each holding one fact you need.
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.
need DHL quote Gurugram → Ajman, 72kg, by Friday. express.
packing list attached. urgent pls 🙏
Pls quote for shipment as below. Confirmed pkg dims attached, IEC docs to follow…
- 01Infinity Logistics — a UAE freight forwarder and integrator key-account reseller — runs on FreighAI. This is not a market we are hoping to enter.
- 02FreighAI does not file your customs declarations. Mirsal 2 stays on Dubai Trade, under your own customs code or your broker’s.
- 03What it takes over is the email around the shipment. The enquiry. The agent who has not sent a rate. The missing delivery order. The “where is my container” message at nine at night.
- 04Keep your TMS for the records. FreighAI runs the work around them. Newage, Fresa, CargoWise or spreadsheets — the records stay put.
- 05Quotes are priced in dirhams from your own rate cards and margin rules, the currency the decision is made in.
- 06The figures here belong to one named customer in the UAE, and are not an average.
The job here is rarely just an import
Cargo arrives to leave again. That shapes the paperwork, the people you wait on and where the week goes.
Look at what Dubai Customs publishes. A declaration type called Import for Re-Export, where the duty is secured by a deposit instead of paid. A transit regime with five declaration types, three for movements in and out of the free zones. A separate declaration for goods going on to another GCC state, with a set-off stamp so nobody pays twice. A customs authority does not build that many doors unless the traffic is going through.
So one file touches several rule sets before it is finished. The box enters a free zone free of duty, with a free-zone licensee named as the owner on the documents. It sits in Jafza while the buyer decides, is sold to a customer in Riyadh, and leaves by road on a statistical export declaration with a Makasa stamp. None of it is difficult. It is a lot of small facts, held by different people, and every one arrives by email.
Who you are actually waiting on
Ask the pricing desk what held up the last quote and the answer is almost never the software. It is the agent who has not sent the rate. The shipper whose packing list carries no gross weight. The line that has not released the delivery order. The overseas agent who must be asked, by hand, for an MPCI Party ID. Half of it arrives on WhatsApp, from someone expecting an answer now.
None of those waits shows up in a TMS, because none is a record yet.
- Landed at Jebel Ali or an air hub
- Held in a free zone
- Sold on to another GCC state
- Moved out again by road
The declarations are filed in your own systems. The facts they need arrive by email.
FreighAI takes over the inbox. The declaration stays yours.
FreighAI takes over that inbox. 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. It writes the reply, creates the task, and puts it in front of the right person in the right department, beside the original conversation. Your team approves. They do not compose, forward, file or chase. The reply goes out in their name.
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 Mirsal 2 declaration is still submitted the way you submit it today. What changes is that the invoice, the packing list and the delivery order have been read, checked and put in front of the right person, instead of hunted for on the fourteenth day.
Format is rarely the obstacle. FreighAI reads PDF, Excel, Word, forwarded email, WhatsApp messages, photos and scans. A photograph taken in a warehouse is read as part of the conversation. Chasing, tracking checks, quote expiry and follow-ups run on their own. Nobody has to remember.
Customs filing, duty lookup, statutory books and your customer portal stay where they are.
What is specific to the UAE and GCC
The parts of the job that genuinely differ here — not a translated version of the same page.
Mirsal 2 declarations through Dubai Trade
Dubai Trade’s declaration service covers import, export, transit, transfer and temporary admission, and Dubai Customs says a declaration “is cleared automatically within few seconds unless customs feel the need to intervene”. Clearing is fast. Getting the invoice, packing list, certificate of origin and delivery order together is not, and the attachments are due within fourteen days, after which AED 50 runs for every day of delay. FreighAI submits nothing. It chases what the submission needs.
Free-zone movements in and out of Jebel Ali
Foreign goods enter free of duty where the owner named on the documents is a free-zone licensee, and Article 80 of the GCC Customs Law keeps some goods out entirely. Going out is cleared against a deposit refunded on proof of export, with a 10% penalty where that proof never arrives. A sale between two free zones is not finished until the receiver acknowledges it on Dubai Trade.
Import for re-export, and the deposit behind it
Where goods come in intending to leave again, Dubai Customs secures the duty by deposit or guarantee rather than collecting it, currently above AED 20,000 except vehicles, under Customs Policies 34 and 37 of 2010. Transit through Dubai runs thirty days from clearance. Both are deadlines somebody has to remember.
The GCC road corridor and the Makasa set-off
Duty is collected at the first customs point of entry into the GCC states. When duty-paid goods move on, the Automated Transfer of Customs Duty — Makasa — stops your customer paying twice at the far end. Road movements clear a statistical export declaration at the land customs office, where the transporter also collects the land manifest.
Pre-load cargo information filed to NAIC
Under the National Advance Information Center’s MPCI programme a forwarder files the lowest-level house bill of lading twenty-four hours before loading, in the NAIC specification's own terms, and gets back one of three answers: load, do not load, or send more information. A forwarder delegating to an overseas agent shares an MPCI Party ID by hand. FreighAI does not file. It works on the conversation behind the data.
It lands on WhatsApp. The quote is drafted before you open it.
It arrives long before anything exists in your TMS, and it decides your week.
- Reads the enquirySpots what is missing in an enquiry and drafts the email asking for it.
- Chases your agentsEmails 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.
- Prices from historySuggests a price from what that customer paid on that lane before, within your margin rules.
What FreighAI connects to for the UAE and GCC operators
Connects so FreighAI can read every conversation and send replies in your people’s names. Your team works in FreighAI, not in the inbox.
Connects so FreighAI can read every conversation and send replies in your people’s names. Your team works in FreighAI, not in the inbox.
Handles RFQs and customer updates on the channel most forwarders actually use.
Your own DHL account, your own negotiated rates, your own carrier relationship. FreighAI reads those rates through your credentials.
Your own FedEx account, your own negotiated rates, your own carrier relationship. FreighAI reads those rates through your credentials.
What happens to one enquiry
Take one re-export enquiry as the first workflow. It is where a UAE pricing desk loses most hours.
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 decides what the approved result hands back to your systems. Nothing assumes a connection into Mirsal 2, your broker’s software or your MPCI filing agent. We scope the first workflow, integration requirements and implementation plan with your team.
need DHL quote Gurugram → Ajman, 72kg, by Friday. urgent pls 🙏
Hi Marco — DHL Express, AED 425 + AED 35 handling. ETA Thu·18:00, valid 24h. PDF attached.
- 01EnquiryIn pricing@ or on WhatsApp
- 02Reads itDrafts the email asking for the weight
- 03RatesYour cards, your accounts, your agents chased
- 04Drafted quoteBeside the thread, in dirhams
- GATEYour pricer approves
- 06Follow-upAnd the counter-offer, if price is pushed back
- 07Won quoteBecomes a job, fully filled in
- 08Mirsal 2 and your TMSFiled and recorded as today
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, in this market, and not a promise to every business.
Forwarders in the UAE and GCC already running this
Infinity Logistics — a UAE freight forwarder and integrator key-account reseller — runs on FreighAI.
Live customer; case study at /customers/infinity-logistics
Infinity Logistics quoted 70% more shipments with the same five-person team, comparing Q4 2024 with Q4 2025.
Signed customer reference, 15 May 2026; M4 truth register §7
What you already run, and where FreighAI sits
Newage, whose NewageNXT platform carries its own UAE page for VAT, air cargo manifests over EDI and MPCI submission, is common here. Fresa describes itself as AI-enabled freight management software covering quoting, documentation, compliance and analytics, and publishes its own UAE MPCI page. CargoWise is a global platform. Plenty of good businesses run none of these.
FreighAI is an AI-first freight operations platform that can run standalone or work alongside an existing TMS or ERP. It does not require a forced replacement. The question is which record stays authoritative, and what the approved result hands back to it.
Enquiries, agent rate replies, shipper documents, delivery orders, tracking questions.
Reads the thread, finds the rate, chases the agent and hands the right person a task to approve.
Newage, Fresa, CargoWise, your accounts package and Dubai Trade.
Worth reading before you decide
Two AI products come up often enough here to compare directly. Fero, founded in the UAE, describes Fero GPT as automation in decision making and communication for logistics processes. Nunar describes AI process automation for forwarders, and its material covers Dubai Trade and Mirsal 2 entries, which ours does not. Both pages say where each is stronger. If the customs process is what you are getting right, read the Mirsal 2 guide.
Common questions
Does FreighAI file our Mirsal 2 declarations?
No. Declarations go through Dubai Trade as today, under your own code or your broker’s. FreighAI works upstream, on the enquiry, the rates, the agents and the documents. Customs filing and duty lookup stay in the system you run.
We are a free-zone company. Does that change the answer?
Not for the email work. Your licence decides how you register with Dubai Customs and which declaration types you clear. FreighAI reads the conversation around the movement: the delivery advice, the invoice, the packing list and the acknowledgement your buyer owes you.
Can it handle our overseas agents?
Yes. It is usually why a forwarder here starts. 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. Whatever comes back becomes a priced, margin-checked quote.
Most of our enquiries come in on WhatsApp. Is that a problem?
No. WhatsApp is a connected channel. FreighAI reads PDF, Excel, Word, forwarded email, WhatsApp messages, photos and scans. A photograph of a packing list is read as part of the thread, and the answer goes back on the same channel once approved.
Do we have to replace Newage, Fresa or CargoWise?
No. Keep your TMS for the records. FreighAI runs the work around them. Replacing the core platform needs its own business case.
Can we price in dirhams?
Yes. Quotes are priced in AED from your own rate cards and margin rules. Where a customer prices in dollars, that is a quote setting.
Do you have a UAE customer we can speak to?
Yes, and the only customer we name anywhere on this site. Infinity Logistics — a UAE freight forwarder and integrator key-account reseller — runs on FreighAI. Infinity Logistics quoted 70% more shipments with the same five-person team, comparing Q4 2024 with Q4 2025. Ask for the reference during the demonstration.
- Dubai Trade — Submit Customs Declaration: the five regimes, fees and required documentsverified 2026-09-03
- Dubai Customs — Customer Guide v3.03: Makasa, the fourteen-day document rule, import for re-export, transit and free zonesverified 2026-09-03
- National Advance Information Center — UAE MPCI Business Specification v1.0: filer roles, cut-offs and Party ID delegationverified 2026-09-03
- The Official Platform of the UAE Government — Customs clearanceverified 2026-09-03
- Dubai Trade — Free Zone Company: the portal’s roles and the licences it namesverified 2026-09-03
- Newage — United Arab Emirates localisation: VAT, e-invoicing, air cargo manifests and MPCIverified 2026-09-03
- Fresa Technologies — UAE MPCI filing pageverified 2026-09-03
- Fresa Technologies — home pageverified 2026-09-03
- CargoWise — home pageverified 2026-09-03
- Fero — home page: “Automation in Decision Making & Communication for Logistic Process”verified 2026-09-03
- Nunar — home page: “AI Process Automation for Freight Forwarders”verified 2026-09-03
- Infinity Logistics customer reference, 15 May 2026verified 2026-08-31
Every regime named here comes from Dubai Customs, Dubai Trade, the National Advance Information Center or the UAE government platform, fetched on 3 September 2026. No trade statistic is quoted, because none was sourced. This is not legal advice.
Send us the last re-export enquiry your desk quoted
One real thread, with the attachments as they arrived and the agent replies as they came back. We will show what FreighAI would have read, asked for and drafted, who it would have gone to, and which steps stay in Dubai Trade.