Ian Featherstone, CDO, Custom Support Group, tells us how the company has transformed customs clearance from a paper-heavy burden into a streamlined digital process using AI-powered Intelligent Document Processing. By combining automation with expert oversight, the group is accelerating declarations, boosting efficiency and delivering new value for clients across Europe.
Europe’s largest customs clearance company, Customs Support Group, has succeeded in turning what once was a slow, paper-based industry – seen by most as a burden – into an efficient, reliable process capable of sharing tailored business growth advice.
Embarking on a pioneering digital journey, the customs broker has brought declarations processing up to speed with its logistics counterparts, using smart technologies like AI automation to reduce the bureaucratic burden for both clients and internal agents. In addition to reducing border delays and hefty fines introduced by errors in human data entry, this has freed up expert time to focus on value-added expert tasks, dealing with complex customs and trade regulations or supply chain efficiency.
How it all began
When the UK withdrew from the European Union back in 2020, there was an explosion of additional paperwork at customs. With queues, delays and heightened frustrations all threatening the future of trade since then, it was clearly time for advanced digital adoption.
Despite already leading the market with other kinds of CustomsTech, the group realised that, in order to truly move the industry forward, it would also need to integrate AI. By the end of 2024, it thus began testing AI-powered Intelligent Document Processing within its UK office. This constituted a revolutionary move for the customs sector.
“The industry as a whole was very paper driven,” said Ian Featherstone, Custom Support’s CDO. “Logistics providers, freight forwarders and other key players are all issuing barrages of documents, which we set out to digitise to streamline the customs journey.”
Although AI-driven solutions in customs have long been in demand within the manufacturing and logistics sectors – with 42% of big companies in these industries agreeing that AI could change the game in terms of efficiency and capacity challenges – 27% of respondents to the same 2024 CSG Strategic Radar Customer Survey also viewed AI as a potential risk. Trade compliance and customs regulations can prove incredibly complex and are continually evolving – heightening this threat. This highlighted the importance of maintaining oversight by qualified human expertise when introducing any kind of AI into customs.
A strong solution
AI has the potential to dramatically accelerate document processing. Yet, any errors could have serious consequences, from shipment delays and demurrage to non-compliance fines and detention. Customs Support Group therefore wanted to get things right, introducing technologies that allowed it to process dozens of documents – in various formats and quality – quickly, whilst leaving the customs clearance decisions and other significant actions to its team of qualified humans. AI is used to automate data entry within the documents, then a customs declarant reviews the input, applying deep expertise and judgement. Only then can declarations be signed off and submitted to the authorities.
Unprecedented results
Thanks to the changes made, what once took a human declarant hours to complete now takes just a fraction of the time, with Customs Support Group hoping to boost its overall efficiency by up to 50% in 2025 as a result.
“Initially, our agents felt nervous,” Featherstonesaid, explaining that “when people see tech come in and work 50% faster, they automatically assume that we will need less people. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Our efficiency savings have actually improved career satisfaction, as people can now focus on the interesting jobs, whilst the company overall gains profit because it is able to do much more work.”
Indeed, beyond speedier declarations for customers, the switch to Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) empowers existing Customs Support staff to contribute greater value through Real Intelligence, such as optimising duty management to help reduce the financial impact of constantly evolving global trade tariffs. Equally, a customs agent might use additional time to suggest revising a specific HS code or leveraging a new trade agreement – all actions that could significantly reduce duties or optimise a company’s supply chain.
“Thanks to this journey, we’re no longer limited to just processing declarations,” said Featherstone, proudly explaining how the introduction of AI has allowed Customs Support to also offer Customs-as-a-Service. “Historically, our agents would sit there for hours but only use their real knowledge for the last 10 minutes to save on tariffs or duties. AI means they’re now consistently able to apply their intelligence, adding value and really supporting customer nuances as AI does the donkey work.”
The changes made by Customs Support Group have established it as the digital frontrunner within customs clearance – reaching a major milestone in January 2025: processing every second of its four million annual customs declarations fully digitally across 14 different European markets. This sets a new benchmark precedent for the sector.
Safeguarding progress
Of course, great effort was put into honing and training the system before full rollout to maximise both AI input accuracy and efficiency gained by the team. The fewer items the team has to cross-reference and correct, the better.
Customs Support Group thus launched several rounds of AI testing, the aim being that even in cases where information may be handwritten or low-resolution (for example in blurry phone photos of documents obscured by the lorry driver’s hands or feet), input is generally accurate, requiring only minimal human checks and intervention.
After the first round of testing, the efficiency of the customs process improved by up to 99% for simple, repetitive, high-volume tasks, increasing by 36% for more complex goods declarations. Any information that AI was unable to read was highlighted in red and still had to be manually entered and anything it wasn’t sure about was highlighted in orange, to be reviewed and validated by an agent. Corrected documents were then fed back to the AI model, which learns from its mistakes to allow for continual improvement. The hope is that this will lead to a gross 50% efficiency improvement throughout the course of the year.
What’s next on the horizon?
Currently live in the UK, Custom Support Group’s AI solution will soon be deployed across operations in Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium. By the third quarter of 2025, this extension of services will have been expanded to include all 14 of the Group’s markets. The aim is to process 25% of total customs declarations handled by the Group – a figure equating to approximately one million documents – using AI-powered IDP technology, just in 2025.
The above rollouts should furthermore allow the team to increase its current digital 50% processing rate to between 80% and 90% of all customs declarations in 2026. The remaining 10% to 20% reflects only those companies that are bound to continue submitting paper-based documents despite advancements – something that means there will always be some need for manual handling.
“It’s an ever-evolving process”, explained Featherstone. “Transformation will never be finished. More than half our declarations are done digitally now – but that figure was zero when we started. Yes, there have been challenges. But the important thing is that we keep moving. Our development team is very agile and can pick up new tech that can be in production just a week later. It’s not always going to work – but that doesn’t matter as long as you get up more times than you fall. This journey is not about failure but learning, to drive continual improvement.”
The journey embarked on to reach the point where the customs industry has gone from fully paper-based to predominantly digital reflects a significant message for any business thinking about embracing AI. Transformation is not about replacing human capabilities but freeing up expert time to focus on what really matters. By significantly reducing agents’ workload, Customs Support Group is now positioned to scale its own operations geographically, as it delivers value to a growing number of clients who now glean fundamental insights from a process that used to deliver nothing but queues and a pile of papers.
