project44 is deepening its push into artificial intelligence with the acquisition of LunaPath.ai, a move that underlines chief executive Jett McCandless’s ambition to build a supply chain platform that can do more than monitor freight. The Chicago-based company said on 9 April that it had bought the logistics orchestration start-up in an all-cash deal, adding a layer of agentic AI designed to act on operational problems rather than simply flag them.

The deal fits neatly into project44’s broader strategy. Over the past decade, the company has built what it describes as a vast real-time logistics data graph, tying together information from ERP, TMS, yard management and visibility systems to create a live picture of freight movement. That foundation has become central to its AI plans, because the company argues that intelligent automation only works properly when it is grounded in accurate operational context.

LunaPath’s software is built for exactly that environment. Its AI agents are designed to handle repetitive logistics work such as status checks, proof-of-delivery requests, appointment confirmation, claims initiation and carrier follow-up. Rather than operating as isolated tools, they are meant to coordinate across systems and workflows, helping teams resolve exceptions faster and with less manual intervention.

McCandless has been vocal about his preference for AI built into the core of the product rather than layered on top afterwards. He said project44 has spent years testing different platforms and concluded that LunaPath performed best for logistics execution, in part because it was trained specifically for those workflows. The company also says its scale gives it an advantage: project44 now processes 4.6 million shipments a day, a volume it believes improves the quality of automation as more transactions flow through the platform.

The acquisition follows a series of AI-related product moves. On 8 April, project44 unveiled an AI agent portfolio at its decision44 event, covering use cases such as freight procurement, disruption response and carrier onboarding. In October 2025, it introduced Multi-Agent Orchestration for its Decision Intelligence Platform, a framework intended to coordinate specialised agents and move operations from reactive problem-solving towards more autonomous execution.

project44 has also been building through acquisitions before. Its purchase of Ocean Insights in 2021 expanded its ocean freight intelligence business and helped strengthen its end-to-end visibility offering. The LunaPath deal suggests the company now wants to extend that model from seeing what is happening in the supply chain to actively deciding and doing something about it.

For McCandless, the underlying bet is that logistics AI must be native to the workflow if it is to matter at scale. In that sense, the acquisition is less a bolt-on and more a sign of where project44 thinks the market is heading: from data and alerts to systems that can carry out the work themselves.

Source: Noah Wire Services