Netflix took 3.5 years to meet the same milestone.  Facebook took 10 months.  Instagram 3 months. 

And ChatGPT just 5 days. That’s crazy-fast uptake. So what exactly is ChatGPT? 

Well, to put it simply, it’s ai powered language tool that can answer questions and dialogue in a conversational way. And people seem to love it. What can you do with it? All sorts. You can ask it questions, get it to write content, ask it for research data, get it to write code… 

You can even get it to write limericks for you! Here’s one it wrote for me…

 There was a freight forwarder named Chadd,

He shipped things that made clients glad,

He moved cargo by sea and air,

And made sure it got there with care,

Chadd’s service was never bad!

What does this mean for the freight industry? Well.. ai is coming for us. Give it 5 to 10 years and no industry will be left untouched by artificial intelligence. Give it 20 years and the way things work will be unrecognisable. Will we be replaced by walking, talking robots? Unlikely. But ai will replace a lot of the legwork in many industries. Think of it this way… Ai will do for freight forwarders, what tractors did for farmers. 

Did tractors replace the need for farmers? No. The farmers who moved with the times and learned to make use of the new technology thrived. And that’s how it will be in the freight industry too. Will ai ever fully replace us? Not anytime soon. There’s an element of freight that requires a human touch. The relationship between forwarder and client, forwarder and partners. 

But ai will change some of the legwork that goes on behind the scenes. In what way? I don’t know yet. But I do know that when it does, I’ll be ready to move with it. Remember the cautionary tale of Blockbuster. When streaming became possible, they stuck to their guns and failed to move with the times. What was once a booming $5 billion company with over 9000 video stores around the world has been reduced to just one store in the USA that’s now used as a tourist destination and Airbnb. It’s adapt or die. 

So how about you? Are you ready to welcome ai into your business when it comes?