← The Digital Executive
The Digital Executive
Chris Condon on Revolutionizing Air Freight with AI-Powered Workflow Automation | Ep 1077
00:10:52
Loading summary
Transcript16 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:09]
B
Welcome to Coruscant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast. Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today's guest is Chris Condon. Chris Condon is the CEO and founder of aircon, a technology focused air freight platform headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Pioneering AI driven workflow automation that is transforming the air freight industry. With over 26 years of significant management experience in third party logistics, Chris has held key leadership roles including CEO of Tricon Logistics and Regional Director and CEO of Transtrade Logistics. His career began at Expediters International of Washington where he served as the department manager. In 2021, Chris founded Aircon with a revolutionary mission to empower small and medium sized freight forwarders through cutting edge AI and workflow automation technologies. Well, good afternoon Chris. Welcome to the show.
- [00:58]
A
Thanks Brian, thanks for having me.
- [01:00]
B
Absolutely, my friend. I appreciate it. We're in the same time zone today. You're in Dallas, I'm in Kansas City. We do traverse the globe. I always like to bring that up first on the podcast just to kind of set the record straight of where everybody's at in the world. So I appreciate that. And Chris, jumping into your first question, you've spent over two decades in logistics leadership roles. What inspired you to launch Aircon and how is it different from traditional freight forwarding platforms?
- [01:24]
A
Well, that's kind of a loaded question, but really it comes down to the fact that I, I like to compete, played sports all my life and going from a large freight forwarder to a smaller freight forwarder, I was able to compete at every level with the exception of air freight. And by the third or fourth time being rejected by a large shipper, you can think of companies like Microsoft or Cisco or those type of folks. On the air freight side, I kept not getting able to get to the second or third round of the RFPs and a light bulb went off and say, these guys are consolidating. These guys that are moving on are reducing their, their net effect, if you will, their, their chargeable weight. And so the idea was to be able to leverage all the freight borders at scale to compete against the large multinationals.
- [02:06]
B
I love that. Think smarter, right? That's so cool. And I know it's, it's in you, you're. We talked about this a little bit is you're just competitive and you're outgoing, you've got a lot of energy and enthusiasm, but you took to the next level and found a solution to how to compete with the big guys. So I appreciate that. And Chris, my next question for you. Aircon is pioneering AI Driven workflow automation in air freight. What are some specific pain points in the industry that your platform is solving for small and mid sized forwarders?
- [02:33]
A
Well, it's really capacity at the end of the day in air freight. Most people talk about capacity in terms of the air freight or the airline's capacity on rates, but it's really about labor capacity and timing of that. Meaning air freight is. Let me rephrase that. The air freight is stereotypically done or communicated 24 7. Right. So if you don't have the labor capacity to respond to air freight in real time, you just lose your opportunity to win that piece of business. In fact, it's an interesting stat. Is, is that what most people believe is that you have 40 to 50% better chance of winning a shipment if you're the first to quote in air freight versus an ocean freight? It's all about rates. Right. Meaning you could take a week or two to respond to an ocean quote and still win the business because rate's more important where an air freight rate is really secondary or even third on the list of priorities. But speed is really the key to that. And we found that in our internal data when we turned on our first AI agent, which we call Laura, we found it immediately. Within the first 90 days, our win percentage went up by 40%. Our revenue went 2 1/2x all within that first 90 days.
- [03:44]
B
That's awesome. Love how you kind of broke that out for us. You know, not all of us, this is a tech podcast, but we, you know, talk about AI all the time. And I like how founders and entrepreneurs like yourself come in and share with our audience really how that business works. And what I heard is capacity is the key word in air freight. You know, you talked about labor capacity, speed, capacity, tracking capacity, but that first to quote, obviously, you know, leveraging the power of AI, you were able to in a 90 day period, increase that win rate for jobs, RFPs, whatever you call them in that industry at 40% is amazing. So I appreciate that.
- [04:18]
A
Yeah, it's not just the AI piece, which I think a lot of people for. Maybe I, I'm the one that misses. Maybe AI is really just the, is just part of the toolbox, if you will, that helps us obviously structure the data so we can digest it and look for routes and all these other things, but it's really a plethora of other things as well. Right. It's physical networks, it's all these different things. That AI just kind of wraps it all together.
- [04:43]
B
Absolutely. I appreciate that. Chris. Could you walk us through a real world example of how AI powered automation on your platform drastically improves shipping, handling or customer outcomes.
- [04:54]
A
Sure, absolutely. So we have three agents and our first agent is our quoting agent, which we call Laura. Let's say 50 to 60% of US exports is controlled by the buying country. So let's say South Africa for example, or Joburg in South Africa. If that buyer there is buying something, they're going to go to a freight forwarder. That freight forwarder in South Africa typically will email two or three freight forwarders here in the U.S. those two or three freight forwarders will reach out to truckers, airlines, warehouses, etc. Get rates, put margins, look at the compliance of it, put it together and respond. And that normally takes without AI anywhere, depending on the time of day, obviously anywhere from, you know, 30 minutes to 24 hours depending on the day at the time of the request. With our solution, Lora, we basically respond within two minutes anywhere in the US Basically anywhere in the world with a competitive rate. So that's how we use AI to speed for speed to market. And then we also use AI for what I say is traditional AI is more the ML and the and predictive analytics. So once you have the shipment, so not only, hey, the shipment is awarded to forwarder A, our second agent is what we call Rocky, which is kind of a nod to one of my favorite movies, Rocky obviously, but also it's a canine dog for tsa. So you think of, you know, all the compliance. But what happens is the customer fee book. We will re quote it with now the new data points that we have, right? We have the Iraqi has the shipment ready date, he's got the schedule of the carriers, the predictive analytics on the on time performance of the trucker and he knows what the client is willing to pay and what the client expectation is, which those two things we did not have per se at the time of quoting. So Rocky will re quote it again, again automatically in real time and find out what the best route is to meet the customer's expectation and maximize profit for the freight forwarder. And a prime example of that is, which I like to use a lot is Milwaukee to London. Most freight forwarders will quote that over Chicago, right? So they would truck it to Chicago and then use an airline, British Airways, American, Virgin, whatever, out of Chicago, direct flight to London. And they do that because there's just lots of capacity out of Chicago, right. There's lots of daily flights, there's lots of, lots of options in terms of carriers. But now that you have the freight and you know, the expectation of the transit time. Rocky will rebook it based on maximum price and maximum probability of being on time. So let's say it's a Friday and there's a, it's a summer schedule. And he has a flight out of Cincinnati that is half full compared to overcapacity in Chicago. We're going to truck it through Cincinnati. Direct flight Cincinnati to, to London, which could save up to 30 to 50% just on the buy rates from the airline, as an example.
- [07:46]
B
That's amazing. I really appreciate that. You know, we always talk about our team, right? We talk about the people. Great team, great cultures. But here, truly, you've got a whole team of AI. You know, you talked about Laura, you talked about Rocky. This is a very complex process with many different touch points along the way. Right. But not only accurate, you can respond a lot faster to win these jobs. And then when you win those jobs, you can actually provide the most efficient, inexpensive routes, transit times, probability of being on time. I think that's awesome. And that's the things that I like to highlight here on the podcast. So I appreciate you sharing that with us. Chris, last question of the day. You've described aircon's mission as reimagining how freight is managed. What does the future of air freight logistics look like to you in a fully AI automated environment?
- [08:30]
A
I see it kind of coming through, connecting all the different folks and or providers all under one roof to include fintech. Right. So if you think of the dollars spent on transportation, on buying and POS and all this kind of good stuff, there's roughly 16 to 18 financial transactions that happen in a particular shipment from a PO creation to shipment delivered, or PO closing, if you will. I see AI wrapping that together to make it smoother and less barriers of entry so more people can do business with people. That's kind of my driving force is that I truly believe that if you can be competitive, people do business with people and through relationships and through trust factors. That's why these, you know, at least in my mind, these smaller free porters you can see will have business with Foxconn or with Cisco, or, you know, Schlumberger, whatever the large shipper is. It's like, how did you get that business? Well, you know, that person who was deciding that particular item trust you that you would take care of their product. That's actually where Rosie comes in, which is our third AI agent, which is our exception agent, is really the visibility agent. What's cool about it is it's not just visibility because who cares if your freight's in Long beach or London, it's what is my solutions to fix it and what is it going to cost me to meet my need at the particular time. And Rosie will define that and give options to the buyer to help the freight forwarder retain business and not have egg on their face, if you will.
- [10:05]
B
That's amazing. Again, you know, we just talked about your team, your AI team, and now you mentioned another agent, Rosie, your exception agent, which is phenomenal at the end of the day. And I like to highlight this because while I love emerging tech and AI, we all need to keep humans at the center of this, right? You talked about that relationship and trust and you still need to have that. You still need to be face to face. A lot of times it's just learning how to be more efficient and effective in your processes on the back end is a game changer, as you know. So I appreciate that, Chris, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
- [10:41]
A
Sounds good, Brian. I appreciate it very much and I will chat soon.
- [10:43]
B
Bye for now.