CHICAGO, May 06, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Redwood Logistics (Redwood), one of North America’s leading modern fourth-party logistics (4PL) providers, today released its inaugural AI in Logistics Report, drawing on original research from Redwood’s Customer Advisory Board to document why most AI initiatives in freight stall before they scale and what the organizations generating measurable results are doing differently.
The data makes the scale of the gap visible:
- 40% of transportation organizations have not yet launched a single AI pilot.
- 13% of companies actively deploying AI are generating quantifiable results.
- 37% of logistics leaders have identified AI and predictive decision support as a top investment priority for 2026.
The gap between where the industry is directing capital and where it is seeing returns is not a technology problem. Redwood’s research points to a consistent underlying cause: Organizations are investing in AI before establishing the data foundations, operating models, and governance structures required to support it.
“The organizations generating returns from AI are not necessarily the ones with the most software,” said Michael Reed, Chief Product Officer, Redwood Logistics. “The companies succeeding are the ones that built the right conditions first. For shippers that engage a 4PL with the right infrastructure already in place, a significant portion of that groundwork comes built in. Our research makes that distinction concrete and provides a path forward for shippers to operationalize AI within our industry.”
The AI in Logistics Report examines logistics AI through three lenses: The ideal future state of a fully AI-enabled operation, the current-state barriers that keep most organizations in manual exception management despite technology investment, and a practical framework for closing the gap. Central to the report is a four-pillar readiness model covering organizational structure, data foundation, technology architecture, and change management and governance.
Among the findings of Redwood’s complimentary research: 35% of transportation leaders cite data quality and availability as the single largest barrier to AI value, and 28% point to integration gaps across TMS, ERP, and planning tools. Together, they account for the majority of the obstacles logistics organizations report.
“Data and integration challenges are not new. What is new is that they have become AI-blockers,” said Eric Rempel, Chief Innovation Officer, Redwood Logistics. “Connecting a shipper’s full technology stack into a coherent operational layer typically takes 12 to 36 months through traditional approaches.
“The organizations that have already solved that problem, whether through years of internal investment or through a 4PL with purpose-built integration infrastructure, are positioned to put AI to work today,” continued Rempel. “The ones that have not are going to keep producing pilots that never compound into results. That is the problem this report is designed to help logistics leaders diagnose.”
Alongside the report, Redwood is releasing a companion AI Readiness Scorecard that benchmarks organizations across all four pillars and provides a prioritized view of where gaps are most likely to limit AI performance before further investment is made. The AI in Logistics Report and AI Readiness Scorecard are available for download at Master AI Readiness in Logistics.
About Redwood Logistics
Redwood Logistics® is a leading logistics company and modern 4PL headquartered in Chicago. For more than two decades, Redwood has delivered innovative solutions for moving and managing freight while helping shippers build smarter and more adaptable supply chains. Redwood is a modern 4PL that unifies logistics execution, supply chain technology, and open-ecosystem integration to run, optimize, and continually improve complex supply chains.
This model brings together deep multimodal execution expertise with advanced integration and orchestration capabilities to provide real-time visibility, reduce operating costs, and support more intelligent end-to-end operations.
This approach is powered by RedwoodConnect™, a digital supply chain integration platform that links partners, technologies, and processes into a coordinated and flexible ecosystem. Through this strategy, Redwood enables customers to shape their own digital supply chain fingerprint and access the tools, insights, and experience required to manage dynamic logistics networks.
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