The Freight Forward - April 2026

The Manifest

A message from Zencargo VP of Product, James Fry

Welcome to the April edition of The Freight Forward. As we move further into 2026, our mission remains centered on transforming the complex detective work of logistics into a streamlined, high-speed experience for your team.

At the heart of this transformation is Luca, your AI-powered team mate – growing smarter with every update and designed to connect your data and automate the heavy lifting. 

In this issue, we’ll explore:

• The launch of Luca Dock: Let Luca handle the inbox grind. Automatically identify, match, and file documents with a single click.
• Enhanced delay visibility: Don’t just see if a shipment is late – understand why and stay ahead of risks.
• UK Air customs: New updates to accelerate your clearances and keep freight moving faster.

Luca is learning and growing with every shipment. We’re excited to show you how these latest enhancements are simplifying your workday.

Happy reading!

Update 1:

Luca Dock: Teaching Luca to read your inbox

Every operations team knows the routine. Emails land, attachments get downloaded, files get renamed, and someone spends their afternoon making sure the right document ends up on the right shipment. It’s slow, repetitive, and pulls your team away from the work that actually moves freight.

We’re changing that. With the launch of Luca Dock, Luca is learning to understand your inbound emails, starting with the documents attached to them.

How it works

When a commercial invoice or packing list arrives in your inbox:

• Luca reads the email, saves the attachment to your platform, and identifies exactly what it is
• Luca finds the matching shipment and presents it to you
• You review the suggestion and click to accept
• The moment you click accept, Luca pulls out the data (like CBM, descriptions, and line items) and files it automatically.

No renaming, manual data entry, or switching between your inbox and the platform.

Simple, but most importantly, secure

Security is built into every step Luca takes. Every inbound email is verified and every sender is authenticated before Luca processes anything. Documents are matched to shipments through secure, auditable logic, and nothing reaches your platform without passing those checks first. Your data stays locked down while the heavy lifting gets automated.

What we’re doing next

Luca Dock is the first step in a much larger plan. Today, Luca reads your inbound documents and helps your team file them faster; very soon, Luca will process them end to end. Beyond that, the same intelligence that powers Luca Dock will start powering something more valuable: Luca’s ability to spot potential issues in your supply chain before they become problems, and to communicate with you proactively rather than reactively.

This is Luca learning the language of your operations. Luca Dock is just where the conversation starts.

AI & Automation Product Manager, Josh Clement-Sutcliffe, explains more:

<demo video to come>

Update 2:

Air freight gets the first class treatment

We’re bringing the speed of the runway to your customs paperwork. We’ve expanded our customs infrastructure to support UK Air Shipments, bringing the same consistency to your high-priority air cargo that you already enjoy for ocean freight.

• Effortless data: Luca Scan “reads” your air documents and extracts key details automatically – no more manual data entry or PDF wrestling.
• Ready to file: Extracted data flows instantly into a format ready for UK customs declarations.

By removing the reliance on manual prep, we’re building a faster, more scalable way for your business to fly through customs with total consistency across ocean and air.

Update 3:

Better GPS for your cargo’s timeline

Navigating by the stars is for history books; we want you sailing with GPS. We’ve overhauled our Delay Visibility updates to give you a weather report for your shipments. 

You’ll now see clear status pills next to your shipments, including “Ahead of Schedule” or “Behind Schedule”, as well as context and detail, explaining why a delay is happening (for example, if a container was rolled over at the port).

To help you focus on what matters, we’ve colour-coded the severity. A minor shift stays yellow, but a significant disruption (over 14 days) will alert you immediately. This means you can spend less time digging through tracking events and more time having confident conversations with your customers.

Update 4:

No more “Did you get my booking?”

For expert takes, industry news, and deep-dive webinars, visit our resource hub to stay ahead of the curve:

Bon voyage

That’s all for this update. We’d love your feedback on our update or any of the features we’ve shared. Email us at zencargo.comms@zencargo.com to share your thoughts or speak with your Customer Success Manager.

Consider yourself an early adopter? Join our Beta Programme to test new features early and help shape what we build next. Sign up here.