CHECKINGIN
Your Best AI Solution May Be Your 3PL
Vol. 46, No. 7
July 2026
THE MAGAZINE FOR DEMAND-DRIVEN ENTERPRISES www.inboundlogistics.com
STAFF
PUBLISHER Keith G. Biondo
W e are living through an AI gold rush as a massive explosion of venture capital-backed tech startups ood the logistics space. They all promise a magic-bullet AI solution or software overlay that will instantly solve your demand-driven logistics headaches. The hard truth is that these AI pop-ups lack foundational, dirt-under-the- ngernails logistics experience. They understand algorithms, but not the chaos of a crossdock at 2 a.m. when three drivers show
publisher@inboundlogistics.com
EDITOR Felecia J. Stratton
editor@inboundlogistics.com
SENIOR EDITOR Katrina C. Arabe
karabe@inboundlogistics.com
DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC CONTENT
Amy Roach amy.roach@thomasnet.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Ashley Prince
ashley.prince@thomasnet.com
Keith Biondo, Publisher
June Allan Corrigan Tom Gresham Karen M. Kroll Rich Osborne Gary Wollenhaupt
up late and the weather is turning. They’ve never had to manually balance a yard or soothe an angry customer. In supply chain, you can’t afford to let an AI vendor practice on your dime, especially when they don’t know a crossdock from a loading dock. Technology serves your operation, not the other way around. AI isn’t a plug-and-play savior because it lacks context. It requires a “human in the loop”—someone with deep institutional knowledge and real-world domain expertise—to guide it, question it, and apply it. Who are these humans? Your 3PL is. A sophisticated third-party logistics partner doesn’t just buy tech; they live the operation. Why shoulder the nancial risk of vetting AI solutions yourself? A scaled 3PL amortizes massive technology investments across their entire network. They have the tech staff, the physical footprint, and the battle scars to know what actually drives ef ciency on the oor versus what just looks pretty on a dashboard. Partnering with them means you get cutting-edge technology, substantially de-risked. Let them use their operational footing to pressure-test the tools that will drive the next level of demand-driven logistics ef ciency. If a piece of tech can’t survive their reality check, chuck it; it doesn’t belong in your supply chain. Logistics experience gives the right AI-enabled logistics provider the vision to know the difference between Word Model AI and World Model AI. A Word Model treats your supply chain like a giant library. It is excellent at processing unstructured data—emails, contracts, and shipping manifests. It predicts the most likely next word based on historical patterns in text. A World Model treats your supply chain like a physical engine. It builds an internal digital twin of your world to understand cause and effect by learning the physics of your supply chain—lead times, weather impacts, inventory costs, customer demands, and warehouse capacity. It observes your data streams not previously in written words (language) that describe similar events. The ultimate goal isn’t to AI your enterprise, it’s to achieve supply chain nirvana—smooth, predictable, guard-railed execution. To get there, keep your eyes on innovation, but keep your boots rmly planted on the warehouse oor by leveraging the deep operational footing of a trusted, battle-tested 3PL.
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jeof Vita
jvita@inboundlogistics.com
Analia del Giorgio Arlene So
DESIGNERS
DIGITAL DESIGN MANAGER PUBLICATION MANAGER
Amy Palmisano apalmisano@inboundlogistics.com
Sonia Casiano sonia@inboundlogistics.com
SALES STAFF PUBLISHER: Keith Biondo
212-629-1560 FAX: 212-629-1565 publisher@inboundlogistics.com ADVERTISING SALES sales@inboundlogistics.com Joseph Biondo 516-578-8924 jbiondo@inboundlogistics.com Rachael Sprinz 212-629-1562 FAX: 212-629-1565 rachael@inboundlogistics.com Guillermo Almazo 305-833-5372 mexico@inboundlogistics.com FREE SUBSCRIPTIONS bit.ly/get_il
Inbound Logistics supports sustainable best practices. Our mission is rooted in helping companies match demand to supply, eliminating waste from the supply chain. This magazine is printed on paper sourced from fast growth renewable timber.
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8 Inbound Logistics • July 2026
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