FourKites launches Booking Connect for ocean freight

FourKites has launched Booking Connect for Ocean, an automated ocean freight booking platform now generally available as part of its Intelligent Control Tower.

The system is designed to handle carrier selection, contract management, documentation and exception handling in a process that has long relied on manual work and third-party intermediaries.

Ocean freight booking remains one of the most paper-heavy areas of international trade. Shippers often have to compare rates across multiple carriers, gather documents from brokers and public agencies, enter data into separate systems and resolve booking problems by hand.

Spending on ocean freight forwarding, booking management and documentation is approaching USD $100 billion a year, much of it tied to repeatable administrative tasks.

How it works

Booking Connect digitises carrier rate agreements by extracting base rates, surcharges, accessorial fees and Freight All Kinds provisions into a digital rate profile. It then uses that information to compare carriers based on price, transit time, a combined cost-and-transit option, and network data such as schedule reliability and lane benchmarks.

Administrators can also set rules for how bookings should be handled. Bookings that fall within those parameters can be executed without human input.

On the documentation side, the platform tracks required paperwork by route, mode, carrier and commodity classification. It assigns responsibility, follows up on overdue items, routes completed documents for review and maintains an audit trail.

For exception handling, the platform monitors bookings through initiation, carrier confirmation and shipment creation. If a carrier rejects a booking, the system can present alternatives and rebook within pre-set rules, while shipment tracking begins automatically after confirmation.

Wider system

Booking Connect also links with other parts of FourKites' software suite, including tools it calls Order Twin, Inventory Twin and Shipment Twin. This allows booking activity to be triggered by signals elsewhere in the supply chain, such as a projected stockout that leads to a stock transfer recommendation.

In practice, a transfer signal can move directly into the booking workflow, after which shipment tracking begins automatically once the booking is confirmed.

The launch builds on AI agents already in use among large customers. FourKites named Coca-Cola, Unilever and First Solar as users of its AI agents across supply chain operations, and said Coca-Cola, 3M and Unilever have deployed specific tools for customer service and proof-of-delivery collection.

The company positions the new product as a way for shippers to bring more booking work back in-house instead of relying on freight forwarders and intermediaries for structured operational tasks.

Matt Elenjickal, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of FourKites, outlined the company's view of the market: "Ocean freight booking has been stuck in the manual era for decades."

He added: "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."

FourKites processes more than 3.2 million supply chain events a day and serves more than 1,600 brands. Booking Connect for Ocean is generally available.