CASE STUDY additional time to suggest revising a specific HS code or leveraging a new trade agreement – all actions that could significantly reduce duties or optimise a company’ s supply chain.
“ Thanks to this journey, we’ re no longer limited to just processing declarations,” said Featherstone, explaining how the introduction of AI has allowed Customs Support to also offer Customs-as-a-Service.“ Historically, our agents would sit there for hours but only use their real knowledge for the last 10 minutes to save on tariffs or duties. AI means they’ re now consistently able to apply their intelligence, adding value and really supporting customer nuances as AI does the donkey work.”
The changes made by Customs Support Group have established it as the digital frontrunner within customs clearance – reaching a major milestone in January 2025: processing every second of its four million annual customs declarations fully digitally across 14 different European markets. This sets a new benchmark precedent for the sector.
Safeguarding progress
Of course, great effort was put into honing and training the system before full rollout to maximise both AI input accuracy and efficiency gained by the team. The fewer items the team has to cross-reference and correct, the better.
Customs Support Group thus launched several rounds of AI testing, the aim being that even in cases where information may be handwritten or low-resolution( for example in blurry phone photos of documents obscured by the lorry driver’ s hands or feet), input is generally accurate, requiring only minimal human checks and intervention.
After the first round of testing, the efficiency of the customs process improved by up to 99 % for simple, repetitive, high-volume tasks, increasing by 36 % for more complex goods declarations. Any information that AI was unable to read was highlighted in red and still had to be manually entered and anything it wasn’ t sure about was highlighted in orange, to be reviewed and validated by an agent. Corrected documents were then fed back to the AI model, which learns from its mistakes to allow for continual improvement. The hope is that this will lead to a gross 50 % efficiency improvement throughout the course of the year.
What’ s next on the horizon?
Currently live in the UK, Custom Support Group’ s AI solution will soon be deployed across operations in
Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium. By the third quarter of 2025, this extension of services will have been expanded to include all 14 of the Group’ s markets. The aim is to process 25 % of total customs declarations handled by the Group – a figure equating to approximately one million documents – using AIpowered IDP technology, just in 2025.
The above rollouts should furthermore allow the team to increase its current digital 50 % processing rate to between 80 % and 90 % of all customs declarations in 2026. The remaining 10 % to 20 % reflects only those companies that are bound to continue submitting paper-based documents despite advancements – something that means there will always be some need for manual handling.
“ It’ s an ever-evolving process”, explained Featherstone.“ Transformation will never be finished. More than half our declarations are done digitally now – but that figure was zero when we started. Yes, there have been challenges. But the important thing is that we keep moving. Our development team is very agile and can pick up new tech that can be in production just a week later. It’ s not always going to work – but that doesn’ t matter as long as you get up more times than you fall. This journey is not about failure but learning, to drive continual improvement.”
The journey embarked on to reach the point where the customs industry has gone from fully paper-based to predominantly digital reflects a significant message for any business thinking about embracing AI. Transformation is not about replacing human capabilities but freeing up expert time to focus on what really matters. By significantly reducing agents’ workload, Customs Support Group is now positioned to scale its own operations geographically, as it delivers value to a growing number of clients who now glean fundamental insights from a process that used to deliver nothing but queues and a pile of papers. p
OUR DEVELOPMENT TEAM IS VERY AGILE AND CAN PICK UP NEW TECH THAT CAN BE IN PRODUCTION
JUST A WEEK LATER.
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