Global shipping in 2026: the boom nobody planned, and the automation that is coming anyway

In February, Maersk was telling investors to brace for a bad year. Ships were returning to the Red Sea, the fleet had grown too fast, and Reuters reported that the company expected earnings could halve in 2026 as freight rates fell. DSV, the world's largest freight forwarder, said the same thing.

By August, Maersk had raised its guidance for the second time and beaten profit forecasts. Nothing about the underlying business had improved. The world simply got more chaotic.

Part one: where the industry is now

Rates went up for the wrong reasons

Three things happened at once. The war with Iran sent fuel prices up and pushed importers to move goods early; Reuters reported the cost of a container from Asia to the US doubled from the start of the war. US retailers pulled forward their holiday orders to get ahead of new tariffs, and the FT noted rates reached their highest since the 2024 Red Sea crisis. And port congestion in the Middle East and Asia soaked up capacity. That early surge is now ending, which is why carriers are cautious about next year.

The Red Sea is still not normal

Carriers have been edging back through Suez. CMA CGM stepped up Red Sea journeys as Houthi tensions eased, but many owners kept sailing round the Cape because insurers and crews do not trust a ceasefire. Every ship that goes round Africa absorbs about two weeks of capacity, which quietly supports rates.

The big lines are getting bigger

Overcapacity is pushing consolidation. Hapag-Lloyd agreed to buy Israel's Zim for $4.2bn, and its alliance with Maersk has reshaped the global alliance map. MSC, already the largest carrier, keeps growing on its own. Fewer, larger carriers means more pricing discipline in the downturns and more leverage over ports and shippers.

Part two: what changes next

The industry's response to all of this volatility is software. Three layers are being automated, and they are at very different stages.

1. Ports, first and fastest

Terminal automation is no longer experimental. COSCO Shipping Ports said in its interim results that it would advance full-process automation and deepen AI across port operations. Investors are following: a new $200mn maritime fund pointed to labour constraints and geopolitical disruption accelerating automation, AI and robotics at ports. Expect automated stacking cranes, AI-scheduled berths and predictive maintenance to become the default at new terminals within a few years. The friction is not technical. It is labour. The threatened US East Coast port strike was fundamentally about automation, and that argument is not finished.

2. Ships, slowly

Fully autonomous container ships are a long way off, but AI on board is arriving for narrow jobs. The FT reported that the industry is using AI to detect cargo fires, which hit a decade high as battery shipments grew. Route optimisation, fuel-burn modelling and weather routing are already standard on large fleets, and they matter more as fuel gets expensive and carriers try to hit emissions rules.

3. The paperwork, where the money is

The biggest efficiency gain is the least glamorous. Booking, customs, documentation and exception handling are still full of email and PDFs. Multinationals are turning to generative AI to run supply chains, and forwarders like DSV are building the same tools to quote, book and reroute in minutes rather than days. When shippers start looking at unusual routes because the usual ones are jammed, the company with the best routing software wins the customer.

What this means

Shipping's next decade will not be decided by who has the biggest ships. It will be decided by who can reprice, reroute and re-document fastest when the next chokepoint closes. The carriers already know this. It is why Maersk's chief has been calling for an investment push rather than simply banking this year's windfall.