UPS Automates 90% of Daily Customs Clearances With AI Agents

A package crossing into the United States used to require manual review, classification, and error checking—a process that could cause days-long delays at the border. But UPS has demonstrated how quickly this can change through strategic implementation of agentic AI.

The shift was triggered by a July 2024 executive order from President Donald Trump eliminating the de minimis exemption globally, effective August 29, 2025. This ended duty-free treatment for shipments valued at $800 or less and created what UPS CEO Carol Tomé described as a “ten-fold surge in daily customs entries.”

From Manual Processing to Automated Efficiency

Before the transformation:

  • March 2025: 13,000 packages requiring clearance daily, with 21% automated
  • September 2025: 112,000 packages requiring clearance daily, with 90% automated

The share of packages needing no human review climbed from one in five to nine in ten—all while daily volume increased by nearly ninefold.

How Agentic AI Powers the Transformation

Agentic AI carries out multistep tasks autonomously rather than responding to single questions. UPS integrated this technology to:

  • Handle classification, documentation, and error checking as a continuous process
  • Capture expanded data requirements mandated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection
  • Streamline formal entry processes

As a result, 97% of shipments now clear customs on their first day—a significant improvement attributed to automated product classification, digital trade documentation, and predictable landed costs.

Beyond Customs: Network-Wide Visibility

The same principles extend to UPS’s entire physical network. The company is building a digital twin that connects facilities, transportation modes, and end-to-end package flows—refreshing every 10 minutes instead of relying on periodic reports.

This provides:

  • 40% more accurate forecasts than previous methods
  • Network analyses that once took months now complete in an afternoon
  • Near real-time visibility into individual packages through expanded RFID tracking (now covering shipments from over 5,500 UPS Store locations)

By reducing package misloads by nearly 70% and providing richer data for its AI systems, UPS is setting a new standard for operational efficiency in global logistics.