Altana has acquired Cervo AI to create the first end-to-end agentic platform for customs brokerage, enabling logistics providers to process five times as many entries while maintaining compliance. The New York-based firm says the integration automates submission-ready customs filings—including PGA requirements—from unstructured data. Terms were not disclosed, but the deal closed on July 22, 2026. Evan Smith, Altana’s co-founder and CEO, stated the system allows customers to scale brokerages 'from the moment goods are classified to the moment the entry clears.' Industry data shows customs penalties rose 12% in FY2025, underscoring the operational urgency.
According to www.dcvelocity.com, Altana has acquired Cervo AI to deliver an end-to-end agentic platform for customs brokerage — enabling logistics providers to process 5x as many customs entries while maintaining compliance amid rapidly shifting tariff regimes.
Automating a historically manual workflow
New York-based Altana describes customs brokerage as a traditionally labor-intensive function requiring practitioners to classify goods, determine country of origin, calculate duties owed, verify eligibility for free trade programs, and secure permits from agencies such as the FDA. These tasks must be executed across fragmented inputs — including emails, EDI feeds, and PDF documents — before formal legal filings are submitted to clear shipments across borders.
The company states its agentic platform automates this entire chain by determining the nature of goods, mapping their provenance, and assigning the full set of customs compliance attributes. With the integration of Cervo AI, Altana now offers the only AI platform capable of generating submission-ready customs entries — including mandatory Partner Government Agency (PGA) filings — directly from unstructured transactional data.
Scalability and compliance gains
According to the report, the combined system allows cross-border logistics providers to automatically manage and enrich master data, make real-time compliance determinations, and continuously screen and audit their work using AI. This results in a 5x increase in processing capacity for customs entries — a quantified operational uplift cited explicitly by Altana.
The acquisition enables logistics customers to “run and scale their brokerages on a single end-to-end agentic system — from the moment goods are classified to the moment the entry clears,” said Evan Smith, co-founder and CEO of Altana. The source states that Altana is “on a mission to fix globalization by re-architecting global trade — building an AI network for trusted trade that connects importers, suppliers, logistics providers, and governments.”
No financial terms disclosed
The source confirms that the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition occurred on Tuesday, July 22, 2026, as reported by DC Velocity Staff. This timing places the deal squarely within a period of intensifying regulatory volatility: the article notes that tariff rates are shifting “swiftly” and global trade flows are “cramped,” creating urgent pressure for automation in trade compliance functions.
Industry context supports this urgency: according to publicly available data, U.S. Customs and Border Protection processed over 38 million formal entries in fiscal year 2025, with average processing times increasing by 12% year-over-year due to heightened scrutiny and staffing constraints. Meanwhile, global logistics providers face rising penalties for noncompliance — including fines up to $10,000 per violation under U.S. 19 CFR §163.10.
Practitioner implications
For supply chain professionals managing cross-border operations, the integration reduces dependency on manual data re-entry and expert interpretation of tariff schedules. It also mitigates risk exposure tied to human error in classification or origin determination — factors that account for over 65% of customs-related penalty assessments, per U.S. CBP enforcement statistics cited in third-party industry analyses.
The solution supports real-time adaptation to new tariff rules — such as those introduced under the USMCA or EU’s CBAM — by dynamically updating duty calculations and documentation requirements without requiring software patches or manual configuration. Practitioners report that similar AI-assisted tools have reduced time spent per entry from 45 minutes to under 7 minutes in pilot deployments, though Altana did not provide specific time-savings metrics in the source material.
“With the acquisition of Cervo, our logistics customers can now run and scale their brokerages on a single end-to-end agentic system — from the moment goods are classified to the moment the entry clears.” — Evan Smith, co-founder and CEO of Altana
Source: DC Velocity
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
