Flexport Launches Technology to Automate Tariff Refunds
Flexport deploys Agentic AI, led by 'Audit Your Customs Broker,' an autonomous compliance agent that reviews past filings, finds mistakes, and helps businesses recover refunds. SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Flexport announced a new fleet of AI agents to manage customs and prepare for potential refunds; cut costs from the supply chain; and remove friction from global trade. Building on its digital and physical infrastructure, Flexport is continuing to evolve their technology platform from a visibility layer to an automation and execution engine. The release includes an AI auditor for customs, an automated tariff refund process, an AI agent for freight container optimization, a real-time AI language translator, along with the data foundation for the future of autonomous trade: Flexport Atlas. AI Agent to 'Audit Your Customs Broker' In 2025, U.S. tariff policies changed every one and a half weeks. The customs industry has declared 2026 the 'Year of the Audit.' Errors in customs filings are at an all-time high, while government enforcement is increasing. With the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling against IEEPA tariffs, having accurate entries and avoiding mistakes will be even more critical to prepare for refunds. Flexport launched an AI agent to 'Audit Your Customs Broker' by conducting a compliance audit on all past customs entries to identify mistakes and compliance errors. "We first piloted the agent on our own entries," said Ryan Petersen, Founder and CEO of Flexport. "We have reduced our error rate on U.S. customs filings to 0.2%. Based on what we know of other customs brokers, we estimate this to be a 10X improvement to any other broker in the world," he added. This technology is now available for free to any company who wants to check their own broker's work, and in many cases get a refund from the government for overpayment. 'Audit Your Customs Broker' is available at: tariffs.flexport.com/audit. Automated Process for Tariff Refunds In January, Flexport proactively launched a Tariff Refund Calculator to help companies estimate their potential IEEPA refunds ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Now that the Court has ruled against IEEPA tariffs, Flexport has transformed this tool to prepare for processing potential IEEPA refunds, which appear imminent. As part of this release, Flexport's updated Refund Calculator now prepares customers for potential claims. Coupled with the AI Auditor, Flexport can instantly audit past entries for errors, file corrections, then estimate and prepare for potential refunds. The Tariff Refund Calculator is available at no cost at: tariffs.flexport.com/refunds. 'Supply Chain Optimization' AI Agent Reduces Wasted Container Space Businesses have long accepted subpar container utilization as a cost drag because improving it required too much effort and not enough return. Flexport's new, machine learning-powered algorithm automates the hard work and delivers an average outsized return of 10% savings on freight costs. Flexport's AI agent consolidates a company's shipments from multiple vendors into a single container by automatically looking for shipments going in the same direction at the same time and pooling them together in a single container. Unlike other logistics technology providers, Flexport can execute the recommendation, while still giving companies control, to realize real cost savings versus a hypothetical recommendation. "It's like Tetris, but for your shipments," said Petersen. "We let companies choose what they want to optimize for - cost, speed, emissions - and then execute the consolidation. We eliminate the need for costly Less than Container Load (LCL) shipments and make the most of their Full Container Load (FCL) shipments." AI Translation Engine to Enable Global Trade in Any Language Global trade has operated with English as its default language for more than 200 years. Flexport's new, AI-powered, real-time translation engine allows people to communicate with global suppliers and partners in their native language to make coordinating trade easier. Users can write messages in their native language, and the platform instantly translates the message to and from the language of their counterparts. At launch, Flexport is offering translation for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English, Spanish, French, German, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, and Italian, languages representing roughly 86% of global container exports. With the foundational AI translation engine in place, Flexport plans to launch additional languages in the near future. Flexport Atlas: A Foundational Worldview for AI Agents and People to Understand Global Trade Global trade notoriously operates in email and spreadsheets, creating a fragmented data ecosystem that makes it impossible for AI, and people, to truly understand, learn and optimize. For the first time, Flexport Atlas lets anyone see global trade as it really operates, not as a spreadsheet, but as a living system. Flexport Atlas is an explorable, interactive map that shows how freight moves across oceans in real time. It provides the most robust data for the world's ocean container shipping networks, available through Model Context Protocol (MCP), to power Flexport's fleet of AI agents to optimize global trade flows. This data platform allows Flexport's AI to optimize container-routing based on actual sailing schedules, service routings, carrier reliability metrics, and contract prices. Flexport Atlas is now publicly available at no cost to help the world better understand the container shipping networks powering the global economy. Available today at atlas.flexport.com. "Most logistics software companies show you what's happening. They can give you dashboards and recommendations, but they can't move a container, file a customs entry, or recover a duty refund. Flexport is different. We operate the supply chain and we build the technology. That combination is incredibly powerful," said Petersen. "Our AI agents aren't theoretical, they're plugged directly into real shipments, real customs filings, and real carrier contracts. Because we execute the freight, our AI can actually automate it. And our team of experts can create the right guardrails to prevent mistakes. That's how we reduce errors to 0.2%. That's how we consolidate containers automatically. And that's how we're going to outcompete incumbents who have people but no technology, and tech companies who have software but no execution." About Flexport Flexport's mission is to make global trade so easy that there will be more of it. The company makes the world's best technology for businesses to manage their supply chains. Unlike pure technology companies, however, Flexport also has the world's best logistics execution and customs compliance capabilities, allowing them to ship anything anywhere, by air, ocean, truck or rail. Trusted by more than 13,000 companies, Flexport connects every step of the supply chain — from factory floor to retail stores and consumers doors — in a seamless technology platform that saves companies money while delivering superior experiences for their customers.
2026-02-26