Artificial Intelligence – Trade Compliance Applications

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made leaps and bounds in the last few years. If you can remember when Apple released their AI companion, "Siri" in October of 2011, it was a breakthrough in how humanity interacted with technology. As of 2024, artificial intelligence can do more than just search the internet or play music on command. We should consider less of a focus on what AI can do in the public sector and more on how AI is transforming the world of trade compliance. 

AI as we know it today is capable of many incredible things such as creating song lyrics based off a topic you choose or even creating images on a subject given to it within seconds. But has it ever occurred to you that companies could utilize artificial intelligence to conduct trade in applications such as import or export classifications? Now, does AI have the capacity to classify items quickly? Yes. Accurately, well... that is still to be determined. And in the world of trade compliance, no trade expert should trade accuracy for speed. For companies to ensure reasonable care, they must be spot on when it comes to item classification.  

Although AI can do simple HTS classification, it is still in its infancy stage. Even at a global scale outside of a trade compliance capacity, it still has a long way to go to operate without consistent errors. Especially before we as trade compliance experts can confidently trust AI to accurately determine HTS classification.  

AI could be seen as a tool to find where a tricky item falls within a heading. But it is strongly advised to cross analyze the determination given by artificial intelligence and your own experience as a trade expert. HTS classification accuracy is incredibly important to remain complaint within the eyes of CBP.  

When conducting a brief experiment on how AI would make determinations on items subject to regulation under Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCN), Google's "AI Overview" acts in an interesting way. When asking Google's browser AI to determine the ECCN for an internet router, it came up with several ECCN codes. These included: 5A991, 5D991, 5D992, 5A992, 5A002, or 5D002. All could be options on which ECCN to apply for this product (as additional information would be required in order to determine what ECCN this item is regulated under) but this AI has definitely directed us towards the correct category of ECCN determination. AI may not be able to yet tell us exactly to a tee where an item is regulated or classified perfectly, but it does have a head start on how to end up achieving that end goal.  

As it stands, artificial intelligence has made many outstanding leaps in technological accomplishments. As an application to international trade, it could be seen as a beneficial tool that still has many wrinkles to be ironed out. Eventually, AI will be at a stage where we can confidently trust its programming when it comes to the world of global trade compliance. But for now, we will have to wait and see how technology evolves. 

Contributor: Audrey Silcox

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About Allyn International 

Allyn International is dedicated to providing high quality, customer centric services and solutions for the global marketplace. Allyn's core products include transportation management, logistics sourcing, freight forwarding, supply chain consulting, tax management and global trade compliance.  Allyn clients range from small local businesses to Fortune 500 firms. Allyn conducts business in more than 20 languages and has extensive experience in both developed and emerging markets. Highly trained experts are positioned throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Allyn’s regional headquarters are strategically located in Fort Myers, Florida, U.S.A., Shanghai, P.R. China and Prague, Czech Republic. For more information, visit www.allynintl.com.