New set of skills required

Logistics and shipping companies need to invest in upskilling and reskilling their staff to remain competitive in a sector where artificial intelligence is rapidly making inroads. McKinsey’s 2026 State of Digital Logistics survey found that nearly 90% of shippers surveyed had adopted at least one transportation AI use case, while 96% had deployed at least one AI or digital use case in warehousing. “With AI and digital capabilities becoming a standard feature of logistics, rather than a source of differentiation, attention needs to turn now to translating these capabilities into measurable operational and financial impact,” state the survey authors. This is not true for the whole logistics industry, according to Bartek Pucek, founder of The Thinking Company. “The logistics sector occupies a paradoxical position in the AI adoption landscape. “It generates more operational data per employee than any other industry – a single delivery vehicle produces 25 000+ data points daily, a mid-size warehouse generates two to five million scan events monthly – yet its AI adoption rate (35%) trails retail (51%), professional services (56%) and financial services (47%),” he says. There are risks to the implementation of AI, warns Deloitte Insights, which advises that employees may need to be reskilled to operate effectively in an agent-based environment. “That transition will require COOs and other senior leaders to carefully manage accountability, risk and performance. “They will need to establish guardrails that account for multi-agent systems and the dynamic relationship between humans and machines.” An International Federation of Robotics (IFR) position paper states: “Providing and retaining the right skills is crucial to reap the benefits of automation. “Economists have noted that, while certain manual functions are being displaced, the partnership between humans and machines contributes to changing job profiles that require different skill sets, enabling workers to delegate routine tasks and develop their abilities.” Not everyone needs to be a programmer. “This transition is placing a premium on workers who can perform non-programmable tasks that machines cannot yet replicate,” it adds. Companies are also revising their staff organograms. “As AI tools become more common, new roles emerge for supervising, analysing and making decisions. “This is creating new jobs, including robot fleet trainers, robotics system integrators, AI-enhanced robotics technicians or machine learning specialists. “To fill these new jobs, there is a growing demand for digital and cognitive skills, such as coding and data literacy, as well as critical thinking,” according to the IFR. Managers wanting to prepare staff for AI support and to evaluate their ability to adapt and learn can make use of AI Skills Studio, a free learning hub hosted by Handshake. Teaching is through personalised, project-based “missions” that take between 10 and 45 minutes to complete. “Every mission ends with something tangible the learner has built, from an automated workflow to a working piece of software,” according to Handshake. ER