What WallTech Showed, Discussed, and Took Away from GDTE 2026

Five days in Hangzhou brought the WallTech team alongside international logistics professionals, tech innovators, and trade organizations to tackle a critical question: How is AI moving from experimental hype into real, everyday freight forwarding workflows?

From September 23 to 27, WallTech participated in the 5th Global Digital Trade Expo (GDTE 2026) at the Hangzhou Grand Convention and Exhibition Center.

At Booth 6A-T011 in the Silk Road E-Commerce exhibition area, we showcased WallTech’s international logistics software suite and demonstrated how AI is integrating into day-to-day operations. But GDTE was about much more than showing products. It offered a crucial space to discuss where AI adds practical value, which tasks it can realistically take over, and how the core architecture of logistics software is evolving.

One of the central concepts WallTech introduced during GDTE 2026 was our shift from traditional Software as a Service (SaaS)    toward Service as Software.

Historically, enterprise logistics software provided tools for humans to operate. Users manually logged in, typed in rate cards, updated statuses, and clicked through workflows to execute decisions.

AI introduces a fundamentally different paradigm. Instead of waiting to be driven by a human operator, AI agents can understand an objective, interpret data inside the system, and complete defined operational steps autonomously.

For international logistics teams, this shift moves repetitive, rule-based execution away from manual labor. Humans are freed up to focus on what they do best: customer relationship management, strategic decision-making, and complex exception handling.

Rather than positioning AI as a standalone "chatbot," WallTech demonstrated how intelligent automation works best when deeply embedded into core business systems:

• CargoWare: Powers end-to-end freight-forwarding operations across multiple transport modes, seamlessly connecting commercial, operational, tracking, and financial workflows.

• eTower: Drives cross-border e-commerce logistics and multi-carrier parcel network collaboration.

• CargoWareX: Focuses on international logistics collaboration, leveraging specialized AI models across the commercial lifecycle.

During the expo, Daniel, Leader of CargoWareX, demonstrated live applications of pre-sales AI, including automated freight rate recognition, rate card maintenance, dynamic inquiry quotation, and predictive customer tracking.

A recurring theme at GDTE was why general-purpose AI models often struggle in supply chain environments. International logistics involves massive volumes of structured and unstructured data, including rate sheets, customs declarations, shipping instructions, and financial records. These tasks are repetitive, but they rely heavily on strict industry rules and domain knowledge.

WallTech’s practical approach focuses on domain-specific AI that operates directly within the administrative and operational fabric of supply chains:

• Freight Rate Ingestion & Maintenance: Automating multi-format rate sheet processing.

• Quotation Workflows: Turning incoming customer inquiry emails directly into structured quotes.

• Operational Execution: Standardizing routine shipment documentation and status tracking.

• Financial Reconciliation: Accelerating audit and administrative processing.

WallTech also took part in the 2026 International Digital Logistics Industry Cooperation Exchange, held alongside GDTE 2026.

Centered around four core pillars, Rules, Credit, Intelligence, and Transformation, the exchange allowed us to share our vision for AI-driven transformation with industry bodies like the China International Freight Forwarders Association (CIFA).

The key takeaway? Technology alone will not transform global trade. True progress requires interoperability, unified data standards, and ecosystem-wide collaboration across forwarders, carriers, agents, and tech platforms.

Conversations with hundreds of logistics operators over five days highlighted several clear industry priorities:

1. Practical ROI Over Hype: Logistics teams don't want generic AI assistants; they want solutions that verifiably eliminate manual data entry and speed up operational cycles.

2. Context is Non-Negotiable: Freight forwarding requires deep domain logic. Generic AI tools fail without deep integration into underlying logistics software.

3. Cross-Border Collaboration Remains a Bottleneck: Technology must solve not just internal company efficiency, but seamless data movement between global offices, agents, and carriers.

4. Human Judgment is Central: AI execution allows human teams to elevate their role, moving from task execution to proactive problem-solving, negotiation, and relationship building.

GDTE 2026 reinforced our core belief: The future of logistics software is not about adding more buttons to a dashboard; it’s about fundamentally changing the relationship between the user and the system.

Software is shifting from a passive tool into an active execution partner. While not every process can or should be automated, embedded AI will continue to blur the line between software that supports work and software that performs work.

We would like to extend a sincere thank you to everyone who visited Booth 6A-T011 and joined our discussions in Hangzhou.

Discover how WallTech’s solution suite,  CargoWare, CargoWareX, and eTower, can bring AI directly into your daily logistics workflows.

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