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Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics switched on an AI-supported customer self-service platform on 4 September, and a Kenyan routing platform now moves goods in Zambia and Zimbabwe — two signals that the software running African freight is increasingly being written in Africa.
TECHNOLOGY AND TRENDS
7 September 2026 • 5 min read
African businesses pay up to four times the global average to move goods. That single number is the market these platforms are built against — and it explains why the tooling being adopted fastest is routing, visibility and self-service, not automation for its own sake.
Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics launched “Digital ESL” on 4 September 2026 — a web and mobile self-service platform covering customer registration, cargo tracking, booking, demurrage management, digital payments and complaints handling, with AI-supported chatbots for first-line assistance. Importers, exporters and logistics partners can process orders, manage container loadings and track shipments around the clock.
The strategic framing is worth noting for anyone in a landlocked SADC market: the deployment sits inside a national digital policy programme aimed at making a landlocked country a competitive regional trade hub. The platform is one of five digital systems the operator says it is introducing. What it replaces is paper — and the queue at a counter.
Platform scale: Since launching in 2022, Kenya's Leta.ai says it has optimised 6.5 million deliveries covering more than 150 000 tons of goods, and is used to manage over 8 300 vehicles. (Source: Freight News / Leta, 2026)
Leta.ai, established in Kenya in 2022, uses predictive analytics for dynamic routing and now supports the movement of goods in Uganda, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Mauritius. Its own argument for why it exists is a cost argument: African businesses pay up to four times the global average to move goods, which “drive[s] up the prices of essentials like food and medicine and make[s] it harder for businesses to grow”.
The company is candid that Kenya has functioned as a proving ground — the third-largest e-commerce market in Africa after South Africa and Nigeria, with Nairobi as a technology hub and a history of logistics start-ups that tested fulfilment, tracking and real-time coordination models. Some scaled and some did not, but the market learned. Senegal's Logidoo takes a different route, plugging into logistics providers' systems to generate instant quotes and pass the order back to the carrier for delivery — a marketplace model rather than a fleet-management one.
The more advanced end of the same trend is scenario modelling. Vinesh Maharaj, director of smart manufacturing and industry at NTT DATA in the Middle East and Africa, argues that digital twins strengthen South African supply chains by connecting continuous data streams so that different scenarios can be modelled before they happen.
“If a shipment is delayed, a digital twin will show you the knock-on effects and how you can plan around them,” he says, adding that for manufacturers operating on a knife-edge, planning becomes “responsive and informed”. The distinction matters commercially. Tracking tells a customer where their cargo is; scenario modelling tells them what to do about it — and that is a service that can be charged for.
Platforms built for African road conditions, address gaps and border realities are already live in Zambia and Zimbabwe, which means the visibility your customers can get elsewhere is rising while your quoting stays manual. The practical move is not to buy the biggest system available but to close the two gaps customers actually notice — an instant, accurate quote and a live position on the load — and to make sure any platform you adopt can hand data to a customer without you retyping it.
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Visit Laaimylorrie.com| About the Author | |
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Andre Klynsmith Entrepreneur & Technology Enthusiast Andre's expertise spans technology, blockchain, transport, and logistics — with a passion for innovation and driving positive change across industries. |
| Source: Freight News — “Technology helps address challenges head-on” by Ed Richardson View source › | 27 March 2026 |
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