FourKites launches Booking Connect for Ocean

FourKites has launched a new Oceans Booking platform powered by Agentic AI. Booking Connect for Oceanis is the latest component of the FourKites intelligent control tower. The new solution will automate several components of the Ocean Freight Booking processes, including:

• contract management
• carrier selection
• documentation
• exception handling

Many of these processes have been outsourced, leading to hidden increased costs and a lack of visibility. Ocean freight shipping is highly complex, involving multiple parties, strict international regulations, and precise logistical planning for over 90% of global trade. It requires managing complex documentation, container loading, customs clearance, and long transit times, often leading to delays, cargo risks, and hidden costs.

Teams must track every individual container and negotiate rates across multiple carriers. Legacy systems often disconnect electronically, creating a risk of error and delay. There are, therefore, efficiencies to be gained. FMI estimates that the Ocean Freight Forwarding Market was valued at USD 81.6 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach USD 120.7 billion by 2035, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.0% over the forecast period.

What is Booking Connect

Booking Connect addresses many of the challenges by automating these four key processes. It also recognises that the processes are not disconnected. The solutions provide a fully integrated solution within the Intelligent Control Tower. It also means that Booking Connect is integrated with other components of the Control Tower, including the Order Twin, Inventory Twin, and Shipment Twin.

For example, Inventory Twin identifies a stockout and sends a transfer request to Booking Connect for automatic carrier selection and booking. Shipment Twin then begins tracking without manual intervention.

Booking Connect is also capable of leveraging the AI-powered agents Tracy, which handles routine track and trace tasks around the clock, and Sam, a FourKites AI-powered supplier collaboration specialist.

Matt Elenjickal, CEO and Founder of FourKites, commented, “Ocean freight booking has been stuck in the manual era for decades. Booking Connect changes the economics. The AI ingests your contracts, shops the rate, picks the carrier, books the voyage, manages the documents, and handles exceptions. The work that used to require a team of people now runs autonomously.”

Contract Management

Booking Connect digitises ocean carrier rate agreements by parsing base rates, surcharges, accessorial fees, and FAK provisions into a complete digital profile. Carrier comparisons use negotiated rates instead of list prices.

Carrier Selection and Autonomous Booking

Booking Connect evaluates carriers based on four criteria: lowest cost, fastest delivery, optimal balance between price and transit time, and network intelligence, which considers past schedule reliability and lane-level performance benchmarks. Every recommendation offers a clear explanation, details of contracted costs, transit times, and cutoff dates.

Administrators can set thresholds so the system processes bookings automatically within specific guidelines, eliminating the need for manual input. The system accepts rules written in natural language, allowing the AI to interpret and apply them to all bookings.

AI-Powered Document Management

The system streamlines the entire document process—from booking confirmation to customs clearance—by monitoring necessary documents according to route, transportation type, carrier, and commodity class. It designates responsibility, sends reminders for overdue actions, directs finished documents to reviewers, and keeps a comprehensive record of all activities.

Booking Connect manages every required document—Bill of Lading, Shipping Instructions, VGM, Packing List—generating them on your behalf and tracking each one against its cutoff date. When a carrier is slow to respond, the system escalates automatically through two contacts before the deadline passes—no manual chasing, no missed cutoffs, no demurrage.

AI-Powered Exception Management

Booking Connect tracks each booking across three distinct phases: initiation, carrier approval, and shipment generation. If the system rejects a booking, it instantly displays alternative options, allowing users to quickly rebook according to preset guidelines. Once confirmation occurs, tracking starts automatically, providing detailed updates at every key milestone from the port of loading all the way to final delivery.

Closed-Loop Orchestration

Inventory Twin identifies a stockout and sends a transfer request to Booking Connect for automatic carrier selection and booking. Shipment Twin then begins tracking without manual intervention.

Enterprise Times: What does this mean

Booking Connect is built on a proven and scalable architecture. For instance, Coca-Cola deployed Tracy to reduce customer service response times from 90 minutes to seconds. 3M and Unilever deployed Polly, the document agent, to automate proof-of-delivery collection across their carrier networks.

FourKites believes that Booking Connect can offer 86% on-time delivery through AI-powered supplier collaboration. Furthermore, its platform can provide a 3 week warning of supplier delays. The first leads to less supplier communication overhead. Whilst the second can help reduce buffer stock through better supplier synchronisation, improving cash flow.

For organisations looking to ship goods across Oceans, any solution that helps automate any of the complex components of doing so, FourKites now provides tools that will enable enterprises to ship and receive goods more efficiently. FourKites is currently demonstrating the full workflow at the Gartner Supply Chain Symposium, May 4 to 6, in Orlando.

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