Logistics and Transport and Artificial Intelligence: Optimisation That Pays, Adoption That Lags, and Driverless Freight at the Starting Line

Purpose. Logistics is a business of decisions under constraints (what to move, by which route, when), which is exactly what optimisation and machine learning are for. This article asks where artificial intelligence stands in logistics and transport in 2026 and where the industry may be by about 2035. Design and methods. A review combining the share of the logistics research literature that involves AI (OpenAlex, 2010–2025), Eurostat's survey of AI use in EU transport and storage enterprises (2021–2025), a documented case of route optimisation at a large carrier, a literature review on AI in supply chains, and a company announcement of commercial driverless trucking. Claims taken from the literature were checked against the sources cited. The scenarios are judgements built on this evidence. Findings. The share of logistics works that mention AI rose from 1.9% in 2018 to 15.0% in 2025, 7.8 times as much and the fourth-largest increase of the 20 industries, with AI-related works growing 51.4% a year. Use lags research: in the EU, 11.2% of transport and storage enterprises used AI in 2025, up from 5.2% in 2021 and a little over half the 19.9% for all enterprises, and only 2.1% of them used AI for logistics. Where optimisation has been built and deployed, the benefits are large: the UPS route-optimisation system ORION provides daily routes for about 55,000 US drivers at a build cost above $295 million and was expected to save $300–400 million a year and reduce emissions by 100,000 tons annually. A company began commercial driverless trucking between Dallas and Houston in May 2025 after more than 3 million supervised autonomous miles. We expect optimisation and visibility tools to spread through the supply chain by 2028, adoption among small carriers to depend on platforms, and driverless freight to expand corridor by corridor in 2029–2032. Originality. The article contrasts research intensity with measured adoption in the transport and storage sector, anchors the benefits in a documented deployment with its costs, and treats driverless freight as one scenario among several.