A new industry report identifies artificial intelligence as a driving force in global trade, operating against a backdrop of tariffs and armed conflict that is redrawing cargo flows.

The finding, published by Air Cargo Week, positions AI not as a back-office efficiency tool but as a factor actively shaping trade volumes and patterns. For air cargo operators, forwarders and lessors of freighter capacity, the claim arrives at a moment when the sector is already adjusting to tariff regimes and disrupted trade corridors.

What does the report actually say?

The report's central proposition is direct: AI is driving global trade. That claim carries weight because it links a technology investment cycle to physical freight demand rather than to software productivity alone.

Two contextual forces frame the analysis:

• Tariffs — duties that redirect sourcing decisions and reroute shipments between origin and destination markets
• Conflict — wars that close airspace and force longer routings, burning capacity and lifting charter and belly rates

The report does not treat these pressures as purely negative. Instead, it presents them alongside AI as simultaneous drivers: disruption changes where goods move, while AI changes how supply chains decide to move them.

Why the AI claim matters for capacity planning

For carriers, the operative question is whether AI-driven demand is measurable in tonne-kilometres or remains a narrative. The report asserts the former — that AI is now a genuine input into global trade flows.

The mechanism is straightforward in principle. AI systems optimize routing, forecasting and inventory placement, and they underpin the data-center build-out that itself generates high-value hardware shipments. Both effects push freight decisions toward faster, more responsive transport modes — a profile that favors air cargo over sea.

The timing matters. Carriers have spent the past two years absorbing demand swings driven first by pandemic-era congestion, then by e-commerce volumes out of Asia, and more recently by tariff-driven front-loading. An additional, durable demand driver rooted in enterprise AI adoption would change fleet and capacity math for maindeck operators and belly-cargo sellers alike.

Tariffs and conflict as structural, not cyclical, factors

The report's framing of tariffs and conflict deserves attention from network planners. If duties remain in place across major trade lanes, supply chains will not revert to pre-tariff patterns; they will re-optimize around them. AI accelerates that re-optimization.

Conflict adds a second layer. Airspace closures over active war zones lengthen routes between Asia and Europe, increasing block times and effectively removing capacity from the market without a single aircraft being grounded. Combined with AI-influenced routing decisions, this keeps freight rates volatile and inventory strategies fluid.

The verification burden

Manufacturer and technology claims warrant skepticism, and AI demand claims warrant the same discipline. Backlog and delivery records for freighter conversions, tonnage statistics from major hubs, and yield data on affected lanes will show within a few quarters whether AI is lifting airfreight volumes or simply accompanying a demand recovery with other causes.

The report provides a thesis. The industry's own traffic data will supply the test.

What comes next

If the report's thesis holds, expect AI to appear more explicitly in carrier guidance as a demand driver alongside e-commerce and traditional industrial output. Carriers and forwarders that build AI-driven pricing and capacity tools first may also capture share during the tariff-and-conflict dislocation the report describes. The next set of monthly cargo figures will begin to show whether the thesis survives contact with the data.