Freightos Shows the AI Freight Payoff Starts With Transactions

Global freight is becoming more digital, and it’s happening just in time for artificial intelligence.

That, at least, was the backdrop for Freightos’ second-quarter 2026 results, released Monday (Aug. 17). Transactions on the company’s digital freight marketplace reached 458,000, up 15%, while gross booking value, or the value of freight services transacted through the platform, rose 33% to a record $422 million. Platform revenue increased 19% to $2.9 million.

“We are strengthening Freightos’ position as the infrastructure layer for global freight, and unifying our product portfolio under a single Freightos identity to make it easier for customers to adopt and expand their use of it. World events created headwinds for some parts of our business and tailwinds for others,” Pablo Pinillos, CEO and CFO of Freightos, told investors on Monday.

Freightos’ results suggest that digital freight procurement is beginning to deepen, and not simply because more companies are trying online booking, but because more freight purchasing is moving through digital transaction infrastructure.

See more: Freightos Is Learning That Digitizing Shipping Is the Easy Part

The Economics of Digital Freight Procurement Are Starting to Click

Freightos’ second-quarter earnings landed with an unusual combination for a small logistics technology company: modest headline revenue growth, expanding transaction volume and a positive investor reaction as of the earnings report, which saw Freightos’ stock jump north of 10% to trade around $1.50 as of reporting.

The company reported record quarterly revenue of $7.7 million Monday, up only 3% from a year earlier. Solutions revenue, which includes SaaS and data products, declined 4% to $4.8 million. Management said SaaS performance was weaker than expected, meaning some of the divergence reflects Freightos-specific execution rather than a wholesale change in logistics technology economics.

Still global freight procurement has spent years resisting the kind of digitization that transformed consumer travel, financial markets and retail. Freight prices remain fragmented, capacity shifts quickly and bookings often depend on a mix of negotiated contracts, carrier relationships, spreadsheets and human intervention.

At the same time, Freightos’ platform revenue, as mentioned above, told a different story and saw gross booking value rose to $422 million on the back of nearly half a million transactions. That divergence matters because it separates two different forms of logistics digitization: one sells software that helps people do their jobs, while the other turns freight purchasing itself into a digital transaction.

The latter may prove more important in an AI-driven procurement environment, and that’s where Freightos is focusing.

Freightos reported about 21,000 unique buyer users during the quarter, only 4% more than a year earlier. Yet the number of transactions increased 15%. In other words, transaction activity grew nearly four times as quickly as the number of buyers. The company also narrowed its adjusted EBITDA loss to $2 million from $2.9 million a year earlier and reiterated its expectation of reaching adjusted EBITDA breakeven exiting 2026 and becoming cash-generative by mid-2027.

See more: AI Ends the Shipping Cost Guessing Game

Macro Volatility Is Making Digital Pricing More Valuable Across the Freight Economy

Freightos’ Q2 growth also came with an important qualification. The company said the stronger-than-expected transaction performance was driven primarily by a faster recovery in Middle East routes following military disruptions. Average airfreight rates nevertheless remained approximately 25% above their levels before the latest Middle East conflict. That combination explains why gross booking value increased 33% even as transactions rose 15%.

When freight prices are stable, procurement organizations can rely more heavily on negotiated contracts, periodic tenders and historical benchmarks. When prices move quickly because of geopolitical conflict, capacity disruptions or routing changes, the value of knowing the prevailing market price rises. Software capable of interpreting a shipment requirement, querying live rates, evaluating available capacity and comparing alternatives against contracted pricing can conduct far more price discovery than a human buyer can economically perform.

Freightos’ infrastructure becomes relevant because an AI system can only perform that work if freight prices and bookings are digitally accessible in the first place. The company still has to prove, however, that growing transaction activity can translate into a durable profitable business.