This article was featured in the official IMPA publication - Supply Chain and Sustainability Magazine, Issue 5 2025
Artificial intelligence isn’t some future concept for shipping. It’s already here, sitting inside voyage tools, supplier platforms, and documentation systems. You can feel the buzz at conferences, during webinars, in internal meetings. But when you look closer, progress is uneven.
Our new research with Thetius, Beyond the Hype: What the maritime industry really thinks about AI... and where they're making it work, shows the pattern clearly. Eighty-two percent of maritime professionals believe AI will make their work more efficient. Eighty-one percent are already running pilots. Yet only eleven percent have a policy to scale them.
The 150+ maritime professionals who took part in the research believe in AI’s undoubted potential. They’re testing it, but they’re struggling to move beyond experimentation. Maybe that’s because excitement is always easier than discipline.
It’s easy to say “we’re exploring AI” in a board meeting. It’s much harder to reshape workflows, retrain teams, and confront the small frictions that slow change. Shipping is full of pragmatists who don’t chase shiny tools lightly. When we hesitate, it’s usually for good reason, but that caution can also become a habit.
Technology isn’t the problem
It’s tempting to think AI tools aren’t ready. But that’s not the issue anymore. The technology works. What’s slowing us down is confidence and oversight, the human side of things.
In Beyond the Hype, we found that adoption falters when people can’t see how AI fits into the day-to-day reality of their jobs. The challenge is less about the technology itself and more about the management and operational frameworks surrounding it.
If you think back, every major technology shift in shipping has followed the same curve. Electronic charts, digital certificates, online procurement. Each one sparked resistance until transparency and accountability caught up. AI is following that same route. We know it helps, but we still need to feel in control.
Confidence comes from transparency. People need to see what AI is doing, not just believe in it. That’s especially true in procurement, where every decision touches cost, compliance, and schedule. If a system can’t explain itself, it won’t last.
At Marcura we’ve focused on maritime-specific AI that keeps people firmly in control. It’s a simple rule, but a powerful one. We build for clarity, not mystery.
And yet, even with that clarity, adoption is slow. There’s still hesitation, still debate about who owns therisk, still pilots that never seem to end. It’s frustrating because the potential’s right there.
So what do we do? Start with trust.
In Beyond the Hype, we found that adoption falters when people can’t see how AI fits into the day-to-day reality of their jobs. The challenge is less about the technology itself and more about the management and operational frameworks surrounding it. If you think back, every major technology shift in shipping has followed the same curve. Each one sparked resistance until transparency and accountability caught up. AI is following that same route. We know it helps, but we still need to feel in control.
Keeping people in control
In our research, we found out that two-thirds of respondents fear overreliance on AI could weaken human oversight. Our guiding principle has always been that AI should empower people, not replace them.
I’m genuinely excited about what we’ve built at Marcura. Instead of replacing what’s already there, we work as an orchestration layer on top of existing infrastructure. We pull in data from procurement, finance, and compliance systems and recommends the next best move. When a request for quotation arrives, the platform already knows which suppliers are contracted, who’s preferred, and what local restrictions apply. It can route that request intelligently, saving hours of manual work.
There’s still anxiety out there about what AI-driven automation means for jobs. But here’s what should happen: the procurement manager who was drowning in PO amendments? She’s now leading supplier strategy reviews. The junior analyst who spent 15 hours a week chasing quotes? He built the dashboard that everyone uses now. AI doesn’t replace good judgment. It just gives you the time to actually use it.
We’re still learning how to explain this in a way that doesn’t sound like a vendor pitch. Because AI orchestration isn’t flashy. It’s plumbing, albeit very smart plumbing. But when it works, teams start to notice the air feels cleaner.
AI isn’t a replacement for human intelligence. It’s an enabler of it. It lets people climb a few rungs up the ladder so they can see further and make better calls.
From pilots to policy
True adoption takes more than a working prototype, it takes partnership. We have learned that success depends on helping customers integrate solutions deeply into their operations. That’s why at Marcura, we work closely with governance teams from day one, ensuring a sustainable path beyond implementation.
Scaling AI responsibly takes ownership and discipline. Policies, data standards, ethics, all the unglamorous pieces that make innovation sustainable. Procurement professionals actually have a head start here because they live and breathe control frameworks. That instinct for accountability is exactly what maritime AI needs next.
The companies moving fastest aren’t necessarily the biggest. They’re the ones where leaders bridge the gap between departments, where IT, operations, and procurement sit around the same table. Those conversations are awkward at first but vital. That’s where you define how
AI decisions are reviewed, who signs off, and how success is measured. Without that, pilots never turn into progress.
The organisations that are getting this right treat AI as part of business infrastructure, not an experiment. They write it into how they work.
The companies moving fastest aren’t necessarily the biggest. They’re the ones where leaders bridge the gap between departments, where IT, operations, and procurement sit around the same table. Those conversations are awkward at first but vital. That’s where you define how AI decisions are reviewed, who signs off, and how success is measured. Without that, pilots never turn into progress.
When technology earns its place
Shipping has always mixed tradition and innovation. We keep what works and adapt the rest. AI is just the latest test of that balance.
For procurement teams, it’s already showing promise: fewer manual steps, clearer supplier decisions, better insight. But it only works when people remain at the centre.
At Marcura, that belief guides everything we do. AI should simplify complexity, not add to it. It should give people more insight to make an informed decision, not box them into workflows. When technology earns its place by making life easier, trust follows naturally.
We don’t need another wave of pilots or slogans about transformation. We need examples that prove AI can make everyday work better, simpler, more human. When the people using it feel ownership, the technology finally belongs.
If the industry can hold onto that principle, that people stay at the helm, then we’ll finally move beyond the hype.
That’s when the real transformation begins.
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Coming soon part 2 - How AI Orchestration can transform maritime procurement
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