TAKEAWAYS Shaping the Future of the Global Supply Chain
GLOBALIZATION ACCELERATES: AI Boom Outweighs Higher Tariffs and Geopolitics
only be provided efficiently when specialized producers work together across countries,” says Prof. Steven A. Altman, director of the DHL Initiative on Globalization at NYU. “It also shows how companies continually adapt to keep trade moving through disruptions and policy shifts.” TO DO’s: Prepare for disruptions without giving up the advantages of international engagement. Balance supply chain resilience with the benefits of global reach and market
Globalization reached a record high at 25.8%, according to the most recent DHL Globalization Tracker . Using a scale from 0% (no cross-border flows) to 100% (borders and distance have no impact), the number measures four flow categories: trade, capital, information, and people. All four flows contribute to the new record, reaching higher levels of internationalization. Information flows remain the most globalized, followed by capital and trade flows. People flows remain the least globalized.
25.8% The level of globalization measured by the DHL Globalization Tracker, released in October 2026 by DHL and New York University’s Stern School of Business.
WHAT IT MEANS: AI, not tariffs or the ramifications of the Iran war, impacts global trade the most. “The AI trade boom highlights the demand for goods and services that can access when considering decisions such as relocating production. Companies that pull back from international markets while competitors remain globally active may risk weakening their competitive position, the report notes. Robots Take On Reverse Logistics
having been trained on the product beforehand. The software also recognizes items it has never seen before. Why It’s Noteworthy: Ecommerce returns handling has been out of grasp for robots because of the unpredictable product flow: Items come back in different conditions. This deployment tests the solution under real-world conditions. While the robots take over the repetitive grasping, employees can shift to supervision, exception handling, and quality control. Where It Can Help: U.S. retailers face growing pressure to balance customer expectations with the rising cost and complexity of returns. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of U.S. shoppers have either stopped shopping with a retailer or abandoned a purchase because of its return policy, according to recent findings by ecommerce operations platform, Loop, which surveyed 1,000 consumers and 200 retail decision-makers in the United States.
Crumpled shirts, sneakers without a box, dresses that are somehow stuffed back into their bags—robots can now handle these returned items. In live operations for ecommerce company Zalando, dual- arm robots remove such disparate items from bins and identify and sort them. The systems from Sereact sort
Zalando returns at CEVA’s sites in Greven (Germany) and Swiebodzin (Poland). This Robotics-as-a- Service deployment marks the first operational step after Zalando joined Sereact’s Series B ($116M) as a strategic investor in July 2026. The dual-arm robots can grasp and sort items without
14 Inbound Logistics • October 2026
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