US platform provider FourKites announced the "digital employees" "Alan", "Polly", and "Cassie" as well as its natural language analysis solution "FourSight" in Europe in July. These new AI-based offerings have been developed to address critical supply chain weaknesses by automating scheduling, document compliance, and customer service while providing supply chain managers and logistics teams with easy access to data-driven insights, according to the provider.
According to FourKites, the AI agents include the following functionalities:
- Alan: Intelligent scheduling. Alan automates the entire scheduling cycle for supply chain teams, according to the provider.
- It handles everything from appointment booking via email and through portals to sending confirmations and updates. According to FourKites, Alan can also manage schedule changes without human intervention. This allows supply chain managers to reduce manual effort, leading to faster confirmations, fewer missed appointments, and a unified view of all scheduling activities.
- Polly: Automated document capture. "Polly" is, according to the company, an AI-supported digital employee that automates the capture of key shipping documents for compliance. Polly operates around the clock and proactively requests important documents such as proof of delivery
- from all carriers, regardless of their technological capabilities. This is intended to ensure that crucial documents for payments, claims, and approvals are always available, optimizing supply chain operations.
- Cassie: AI-supported customer service. According to FourKites, Cassie was developed to manage and automate communication with customers. It continuously monitors shipments, provides immediate answers to standard tracking inquiries, offers customized updates based on customer requests, and automatically checks the completeness of claims when submitted by customers. This allows customer service teams to focus on more complex disputes, high-priority requests, and important relationship management.
According to the press release, Alan, Polly, and Cassie strengthen FourKites' existing team of digital employees in Europe, which already includes "Sam" and "Tracy".
Transforming supply chain data into insights
Along with Alan, Polly, and Cassie, FourKites is launching FourSight, an AI-supported analytics solution.
With FourSight, anyone in the company can access powerful supply chain analytics without any specific technical knowledge, according to the provider. By asking simple questions in natural language, users can instantly generate reports, visualizations, and actionable insights, for which they previously had to wait days for the
