For the last 2 years, I’ve been thinking through a personal project at the intersection of U.S. & Mexico trade, customs brokerage, finance, accounting, some legal, and definitely process automation.
My recent work navigating Mexico compliance, finance, and administration processes has only reinforced the same belief:
The future of cross-border trade is not just faster customs filing.
It is a more intelligent trade file.
I put that thesis into a white paper: "Trade File Intelligence"
A proposed operating model for standardizing U.S. & Mexico trade documentation, automating broker workflows, and creating shipment-level cost intelligence from source factory to final delivery.
If you want to automate, you must first standardize.
I’m sharing it because I believe the conversation around AI in customs and trade is still too narrow. The bigger opportunity is building a standardized, auditable, finance-grade cross-border transaction record that reduces friction across importers, brokers, carriers, compliance teams, and accounting.
This is not a company announcement, just a personal project and area of interest I’ve continued developing over the last 2 years. Initial thought came to me in my MBA at University of Arizona.
I’d welcome thoughtful feedback from those working in customs, trade compliance, logistics, cross-border operations, or software.
First published on LinkedIn.