Descartes Systems Group introduced its new AI-enabled Descartes Free Trade Intelligence™ (FTI) solution to help manufacturers, importers and exporters lower costs by making more informed sourcing and trade decisions. The solution helps qualify appropriate goods for preferential tariff treatment faster, maximize duty savings opportunities, and reduce compliance risk.
“Free trade agreement eligibility can unlock significant duty savings. However, qualification remains one of the most complex and resource-intensive areas of compliance. Many organisations continue to manage analysis using spreadsheets, disconnected systems and manual interpretation of regulations. This can create operational inefficiencies, risk and missed opportunities to leverage preferential trade programs,” said Brian Hodgson, General Manager, Global Trade Intelligence at Descartes. “By combining AI-driven analysis and decision support, Descartes’ new solution helps organisations understand how sourcing decisions, supplier changes and evolving trade agreements can impact qualification outcomes.”
The Descartes FTI AI solution combines rules-of-origin analysis, regional value content (RVC) calculations, tariff shift logic, supplier declaration management and explainable recommendations in one auditable workflow. The platform uses AI to analyze bills of materials (BOM), tariff classifications, rules of origin and supplier declarations while retaining qualification logic for binding compliance decisions. The solution integrates with Descartes’ Global Trade Intelligence suite and ERP environments. It enables organisations to embed AI-powered qualification into existing trade compliance workflows.
Descartes FTI AI provides
- Faster duty/tariff savings decisions with AI-enabled analysis across multiple agreements that reduces manual review cycles.
- Stronger audit readiness for internal governance and customs inquiries with documented analysis of reasoning, calculations and tariff shift logic behind recommendations.
- Less manual supplier outreach and data collection with automatic requalification that tracks declarations, supplier responses and requalification triggers.
- More informed production and purchasing decisions with scenario modeling to proactively evaluate sourcing alternatives and optimize preferential duty opportunities.
“Organisations are looking for practical AI solutions that deliver measurable business value for quickly changing supply chains,” said Ken Wood, EVP, Product Management at Descartes. “Descartes FTI AI helps customers accelerate complex qualification across multiple agreements. It also captures preferential duty savings more efficiently and improve compliance readiness.”
