The Back-Office Bottleneck in Freight Brokerage
Freight brokers historically have had thin margins and huge transaction volumes, yet many still process key tasks by hand.
A broker might spend hours manually building a load in the TMS, hand-typing orders from email tenders, or matching invoices.
This manual work inevitably causes delays and errors – industry studies note that roughly 20–25% of invoices contain mistakes, costing companies 2–5% of revenue. Meanwhile, every minute a load sits unquoted or unbooked is a lost opportunity to win business.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Advances in AI-powered logistics automation software now offer a path out of the spreadsheet era.
Enter AI agents – software robots fueled by artificial intelligence and machine learning that act like a “digital workforce.” These agents can be trained on a broker’s processes and kick into action the moment an email or document arrives.
For example, an AI quoting agent can read an incoming shipment request from email , look up rates, and respond with a competitive price quote instantly.
An order-entry agent can then take the customer’s email acceptance and automatically build the shipment in the TMS, set appointments and notify carriers. By processing the routine bulk of transactions, these AI agents free human staff to focus on exception-handling and customer strategy.
As C.H. Robinson’s AI lead notes, the more these systems “free our staff from mundane tasks, the more they can enhance and strengthen our customers’ supply chains” – a win-win that boosts efficiency without sacrificing service.
A modern freight broker working with an AI-driven interface - in this new paradigm, AI in logistics doesn’t replace people; it amplifies them.
A report by Gartner/KPMG found that about half of supply-chain leaders are already investing in AI tools to harness their data, unlock value across their logistics operations, and fuel productivity in their most valuable resource: their people.
In practice, AI agents behave like tireless colleagues that never forget standard operating procedures.
For example, a Quoting AI Agent can continuously scan the sales team’s inbox and CRM for unpriced opportunities. It can “uncover hidden revenue” in their email queue and deliver quotes automatically to win more business faster.
An Order Entry AI Agent works 24/7 on load tenders and dispatch emails, streamlining load building and eliminating manual entry errors.
And specialized AP/AR agents audit invoices and run payment follow-ups with near-human judgment, targeting goals like 99% touchless automation. All these agents can operate simultaneously – answering emails, updating systems, and sending confirmations – so brokers can handle far higher volume without adding headcount.
Freight Quoting and Order Entry: AI at Work
Top logistics players are already reaping these benefits.
Take C.H. Robinson, the largest North American truckload broker. By late 2024, CH Robinson had deployed generative AI agents to handle its email-based quoting and bookings. The results were astonishing: over 2,600 truckload and LTL quotes per day are now delivered in just ~32 seconds each, up from manual processes that took hours.
Similarly, the AI automatically turns 5,500 emailed load tenders into shipment orders each day in about 90 seconds – a task that used to tie up staff for hours.
In aggregate, their AI fleet has processed over 3 million shipping tasks and counting, reducing customer response times from hours to seconds.
By April 2025, CH Robinson reported that “well over 1 million” quotes and 1 million orders had been completed by its AI agents. Their AI not only parses straightforward messages (“I have a load for Tuesday”), but can even interpret complex PDFs or terse notes to fill in missing details.
Since adding less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments to its quoting agent, monthly LTL quotes by AI jumped 30%, tapping a new revenue stream. The payoff is clear: where it once took up to four hours for an email tender to be handled manually, now over 5,200 customers get their loads accepted in under 90 seconds.
In short, AI quoting and order entry is no longer a toy – it’s the new standard for speed and scale. Any broker still waiting on manual quotes risks losing sales to those who respond instantly.
Other freight providers are following suit. For example, Uber Freight’s tech team has invested in machine learning to streamline order initiation and tracking in its TMS, and even offers a generative AI “Insights” tool for analytics.
Automating Invoices & Payments: AI Agents in Finance
Just as important as operational speed is financial accuracy. Managing invoices (accounts payable) and bills (accounts receivable) has been notoriously paper-heavy.
Brokers must audit carrier bills, match them to contracts, track customer payments, and follow up on short-pays or discrepancies. Traditionally this meant armies of accountants keyed in data from PDFs and calls. Now, AI agents can handle the lion’s share of these workflows.
With intelligent OCR and learning, an AI invoice processor can extract data from supplier PDFs, compare it against purchase orders or contracts, and even flag anomalies. Once trained, it works 24/7, reducing errors and cycle times.
Real-world evidence is compelling. Uber’s internal development team reported that by applying a GenAI invoice automation system, they doubled throughput and cut processing time by 70%.
Manual intervention was slashed as the AI handled routine invoices with 90% accuracy, yielding a 25–30% reduction in costs compared to the old process.
In other words, tasks that once required human review can now be done instantly. The AI learns each customer’s contracts and billing quirks, so it can automatically audit and even chase late payments. In accounts payable, systems like these flag potential fraud or pricing errors with precision.
Mentium notes that such improvements are long overdue: if 20–25% of invoices contain errors today, logistics firms are unknowingly “leaking” millions in revenue.
By deploying an Accounts Payable AI Agent that is custom-trained on a firm’s SOPs, brokers can achieve nearly 99% touchless processing of bills.
Likewise, an Accounts Receivable AI Agent can automatically audit outgoing invoices, track incoming payments, and send polite reminders for overdue balances. The net effect is faster cash flow and far fewer exceptions eating up staff time. With AI handling routine billing, accounting teams become strategic partners rather than just data-entry clerks.
AI Will Redefine Back-Office Operations – and Scale Your Business
We are on the cusp of a radical shift in logistics. AI agents are not a distant future – they’re redefining the back office now, and we can expect that trend to accelerate.
Leading brokers like C.H. Robinson prove that every repetitive step, from quoting to tracking, can be compressed from hours to seconds. This translates into dramatic cost savings and competitive advantage.
Importantly, these agents aid growth without job cuts. In fact, as CH Robinson’s strategy team says, the freed-up time lets employees “spend more time on more valuable work”. Rather than a cost center, the back office becomes a source of innovation and customer delight.
Looking ahead, imagine a 2026 brokerage: every email, Excel sheet, or phone inquiry is processed by a fleet of AI agents.
New hires don’t need to memorize arcane systems; they simply review and approve tasks handled by smart software.
Brokers can effortlessly scale to thousands of loads and invoices with the same team size.
This shift is already being felt – a Supply Chain Dive report notes C.H. Robinson’s AI agents have cut “speed-to-market” from hours to seconds across millions of transactions.
It’s clear: in a world where one port outage or weather event can disrupt shipping chains, being able to churn through paperwork and rebook loads instantly is a game-changer.
The upside is enormous. More informed, faster quoting means winning more bids. Near-zero data entry errors mean lower costs and happier customers. Real-time visibility (through AI-augmented tracking) means fewer delays.
Above all, companies that adopt AI agents will grow their revenue per employee dramatically. As one executive put it, leveraging AI for routine tasks is about “creating tangible business value for customers” and maximizing every staff minute. Those who hesitate risk falling behind.
Mentium’s AI Agents: Deploy in Minutes, ROI in Weeks
This is where Mentium comes in. Mentium specializes in delivering AI agents tailor-made for freight brokerages and 3PLs. The platform lets brokers write down the rules of any manual task in plain English, and instantly spin up an AI agent that follows them.
No coding is needed – as Mentium explains, deploying an AI agent is “as simple as writing a document”. Because it’s cloud-based and secure (SOC2-certified on AWS), brokers don’t have to overhaul their systems or wait on IT teams. In just a few minutes, a custom agent can start handling emails, PDFs, spreadsheets or system screens.
Mentium offers a full suite of agents for back-office needs.
Its Quoting AI Agent mines the sales inbox and CRM, automatically generating quotes on the broker’s behalf.
The Order Entry AI Agent reads load tenders and emails, then builds the shipment in the TMS without manual clicks.
On the finance side, Mentium’s AP agent achieves “99% touchless automation” of payables, while its AR agent audits outgoing invoices and chases down payments to speed up cash flow.
Even communications and reporting can be automated – the platform can send carrier notifications or compile weekly financial reports so teams stay informed. In short, Mentium’s agents cover every step: quoting, booking, billing, and beyond.
What makes Mentium unique is not just its technology but the support model.
Mentium positions AI agents as a “digital workforce” equivalent to hiring new specialists.
In practice, Mentium's team helps embed each agent into a client’s workflows and updates it until it nails every edge case. Mentium reports that clients often see 99% of manual invoices automated within two months.
Because of its reusable connectors and no-code setup, adding a new agent (for example, a custom AR workflow) can take as little as five minutes. The upshot is plug-and-play AI: brokers start seeing ROI almost immediately, without the long lead times of traditional automation projects.
Finally, Mentium’s solution is designed to grow with you.
As transaction volumes rise, you simply let the AI agents handle more work. Mentium even helps clients continuously improve the agents – if new exceptions arise, a tailored AI update is rolled out so that one-offs become automated routine.
This model contrasts sharply with old AR/AP tools, which often require costly consultant updates.
In practice, brokers who add Mentium AI have unlocked “unlimited growth without waiting for their payables partner to build new connections”.
In one client testimonial, processing costs fell to under 30% of previous levels because the AI agents shouldered the bulk of work.
Mentium lets brokers harness the same AI-driven efficiency as the industry leaders — without a multi-year tech project. By embedding AI agents for quoting, order entry and invoicing, Mentium’s customers are rewriting their back-office playbooks.
They report faster quoting response, cleaner invoice books, and a capacity to handle double or triple the workload without extra staff. In short, Mentium turns your logistics back office into a competitive advantage.
Ready to supercharge your brokerage with AI agents?
Book a call with our team to see how quickly you can get started.
Our team will walk you through a demo and discuss how the Quoting, Order Entry, and AP/AR agents can fit into your processes.
The AI revolution in logistics is here – don’t get left behind.
