Insights Series: AI for Export Import & International Trade

Insights Series: AI for Export Import and International Trade

On this page you will find our series of insights on AI for export import and international trade.

AI Guest Lecture at Northeastern University, London.

It was a privilege to for equitably.ai Co-Founder, John Paul Danaee to deliver a guest lecture on AI at Northeastern University’s London campus in St Katharine Docks with fantastic views of the city of London. Founded in 1898 in the US, Northeastern University is renowned for its experiential learning model, closely aligned with equitably.ai’s practical AI learning. It was great for equitably.ai to contribute to learning at a university connecting two of the top three global AI centres, the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

The lecture moved past the hype of “what AI can do” and tackled the harder question: “How do we make agentic AI reliable enough for international trade and supply chains?”

There was a practical case study of the “AI Sommelier at Sea” where equitably.ai’s innovation lab, AI First Trading has innovated AI use cases not just to write marketing copy, but to predict food product quality (wine) based on academic research in the impact of temperature spikes and movement in shipping containers on quality of wine.

The key message by John Paul – a Chartered Quality Professional – wasn’t the code and data but how professional-quality competencies – context, leadership, improvement, assurance, governance – and tools are being applied to maximise the impact and minimise the risks of AI.

If you are struggling to get ROI from your AI pilots, John Paul showed the agentic AI future, then challenged and showed the audience how to apply many of the quality frameworks and tools to agentic AI:

The DMAIC Framework:

Define: Don’t just “do AI.” Map the high-level process and identify sources of data using quality tools. If you can’t measure and have data on the process, AI can’t improve it.
Measure: Use quality tools to convert vague goals like “better taste” into Critical to Quality metrics and collect data on them.
Analyse: Use AI to find patterns in why things fail (like vibration data in supply chains), not just to report that they failed.
Improve: Deploy the latest agentic AI that is not just about chat, but to execute tasks in processes like supplier management, from defining product specifications to selecting suppliers.
Control: Governance and assurance aren’t red tape in AI; they the guardrails that keep AI from hallucinating and protect brand reputation.

The students understood quickly that the power of agentic AI is only as good as the process quality foundations of the AI deployment.

In a world of Agentic AI, the “human in the loop” is the Quality Professional.

We’re seeing a shift from “AI experimentation” to quality “AI assurance.” How are you measuring the quality of your AI outputs today?

Import Export Show

Great for equitably.ai to be at the Import Export Show, supported by the Institute of Export & International Trade among senior figures from the global trade community, including business leaders and policymakers, discussing use of AI and technology to better trade and deliver for the UK.

See our quick summary of export lessons from businesses like Fever-Tree that have built their success on selling to overseas markets, announcement of the UK Border Target Operating Model and trade finance innovations below.

Panel: Benefits, challenges, opportunities and trends faced by exporters

Businesses that have built their success on selling to overseas markets.

Oliver Winter, from Fever-Tree

Richie Finney, Founder of Captain Fawcett

Pauline Paterson, Co-founder, Dr PawPaw

Bolaji Sofoluwe, Co-founder and managing director, ETK Group

Fever-Tree

Exporting to 90+ countries
Revenue diversified internationally, 30% form each of the US and Europe
Benefits of first mover advantage
Focus on opportunities vs. issues
Some trade barriers in markets free trade agreements can help
Seeing trends in UK also happening in other markets
Take market intelligence information with a grain of salt
Important to have research data and statistics plus go to the market
Verify data from the market. Find trends!
Distributors may not know all the market and consumer data.
Speak to people in the market to understand trends (AI can help !).

Dr. PawPaw

Exporting to some 30 countries including the US and China. Expanding in bigger markets.
Some 50% revenues from overseas
Moving distribution strategy from distributors to more direct to consumer (DTC).
Challenges of exporting when you feel on your own.
Utilising exhibitions, DBT trade advisors, IP lawyers and use of responsible persons.

Captain Faucet

75% of revenues from export
At times can be accidental
Have to take risks (AI can quantify and reduce them!)

Announcement of the UK Border Target Operating Model

Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE CMG, Minister of State

Opportunities for digital and tech in trade
Government taking a balanced approach for both smoother and more secure border controls and trade.
A gradual phased implementation starting in Q1 2024
New technology including distributed ledger technology and GPS expected to reduce paperwork saving companies some £500m (AI-enabled robotic process automation is helping!)
New UK Border Target Operating Model includes a global risk based model which targets segments of higher risk (eg. certain food and geography) with greater access to data and new technology
Planned introduction of new single trade window allowing application for all licenses and authorisations in one place.

What might trade finance look like after disruption and innovation?

Panel: Roberto Napolitano, Innovate Finance; Deepesh Patel, Editor-in-Chief at Trade Finance Global; and Jane Cooper, UK Export Finance.

Estimated £30-40 billion in new trade enablement if fix problems of paper documents eg. bill of lading not accepted by banks in digital format.
In the UK last year some $12.5 billion of capital was deployed to fintechs in the UK, 2nd to the US ($39 billion).
With 55% of fintechs lending to SMEs and a large portion of international trade companies being SMEs, there is an opportunity for Fintechs closing the trade finance gap.
Many tech companies are looking at solving problems of e-trade documentation.
There seems to be digital islands between countries in trade digital transformation while trade is international.
UK Export Finance is looking more at new providers in addition to high street banks.